JAMAICA Public Service (JPS) has implemented an analytical software to minimise the electricity theft from its largest customers.

The power utility company plans on reducing revenue losses of up to 25 per cent, which accounted for US$73 million over a two-year period ending December 2013 resulting from electricity theft from residential and commercial customers.

“What we are kicking off today is a tool that looks at our largest customers, including those in various sectors of the commercial market,” president and CEO of JPS, Kelly Tomblin told the Jamaica Observer during the official launch of the new software for large account analysis at the company’s head office last Friday.

“Throw-ups are easy to see and their impact is relatively small, but one of our large customers can have sophisticated apparati that help them reduce energy usage ever so slightly or just reduce it on particular days and that sophisticated equipment is hard to find. So it is really important that we have really sophisticated or as sophisticated analytical tools to closely monitor our largest customers,” she added.

The large account analysis tool, which forms apart of a multifaceted plan for community renewal, allows the light and power company to monitor total electricity usage on each account over a 30-day period. The system also calculates an overall score for each energy meter, highlighting the probability of an irregularity occurring at a particular location.

In January, JPS signed a contract with the World Bank and United States-based Impact Lab to develop an analytical application tool to assist in the detection of electricity theft. The new system has cost the company US$20,000 ($2.3 billion) with the remainder being a grant from the World Bank.

The partnering companies have since been working alongside the JPS team to ensure the sustainability of the application.

“Let’s face it, most of our customers are very outstanding citizens and by employing this tool we don’t mean otherwise. But we have caught a lot of people taking advantage of the ability to take power without paying for it and that means the rest of us pay. It is our obligation to our customers to stop it, so the largest customers we are going to be evaluating your usage,” Tomblin told the Business Observer.

JPS has been working to reduce the number of electricity theft on both commercial and residential levels. Last year, the company stepped up its fight against electricity theft through the curtailment of electricity supply to high-theft communities and continued anti-theft programmes.

Before that, JPS also implemented a subsidised Community Renewal Rate for the most vulnerable to mitigate the effects of increased rates on compliant customers. During that period, over 197,000 illegal lines were removed, more than 1,200 individuals were arrested and 113,000 accounts audited and investigated.

“Reducing losses is JPS’ plan for reducing energy bill for everyone. There are 200,000 people off the grid now and if we get those individuals on the grid, prices will go down for everyone and we do believe that a lot of persons wants to pay this but don’t know how,” the CEO stated, adding that the company is currently evaluating mobile money as another step in facilitating good customer relations.

JPS is an integrated electric utility company and the sole distributor of electricity in Jamaica. The company is engaged in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity, and also purchases power from five Independent Power Producers to supply approximately 606,654 customers with electricity.

The power company is owned by Japan-based Marubeni Corporation at 40 per cent; South Korea-based Korea East-West Power at 40 per cent; Government of Jamaica at 19.9 per cent; and some 3,000 shareholders holding the remaining 0.1 per cent of the shares.