Debt-ridden Enemalta is hoping to recover tens of thousands of euros worth of electricity which was not charged when more than 3,500 new smart meters stopped recording consumption, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.
A spokesman confirmed to this newspaper that the corporation was still in the process of calculating how much electricity had not been billed when the smart meters malfunctioned.
The calculation is being done by determining the amount of time electricity was being consumed but not recorded and extrapolating it, basing calculations on previous bills and consumption patterns.
As the installation process of smart meters continues, with more than 222,300 being installed so far, the corporation is also dealing with the faulty meters. Enemalta is also still in the process of replacing the 3,500 smart meters which stopped recording consumption at some point or another.
The State energy provider is more than €840 million in the red
Although few in number, since faulty meters only account for just over 1.6 per cent of the meters installed so far, the faults still mean more losses for Enemalta.
The State energy provider is more than €840 million in the red, with the Government opting to part-privatise Enemalta by selling a minority shareholding to Chinese firm Shanghai Electric in order to reduce this debt by an estimated €200 million.
Apart from the debt racked up with recent and not-so-recent investments such as the Delimara power station and its BWSC upgrade as well as the interconnector linking Malta to the European energy grid, Enemalta’s biggest liability is the enormous losses it was making in electricity distribution.
According to Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi, the shortfall between the amount of energy generated and the amount that actually reaches households and other consumers was costing Enemalta an estimated €70 million a year.
Faulty smart meters are just making this situation worse.
The Enemalta spokesman explained that when an electricity meter stops recording information, a lost revenue recovery process is launched.
This process, which has been in place since before smart meters were introduced, provides a mechanism to estimate consumption in situations when a water or electricity meter stops recording consumption due to a fault, accidental damage or for any other reason.
This process, which takes into consideration the long-term consumption patterns of the meter in question to quantify the unaccounted consumption, is carried out by ARMS Ltd, the spokesman said.
He said that the lost recovery process was still underway and he could not say whether the electricity was valued at millions.
“The final estimate of the electricity costs involved is not yet available,” he said.
He said that while this cost recovery process was under way, the corporation had embarked on a programme to replace the faulty meters. So far, just over 3,000 of these faulty meters have been replaced.
The spokesman said that the corporation had introduced “several measures” to ensure that if more smart meters had to stop recording consumption for one reason or another, the system immediately identifies them so they could be replaced as soon as possible.
“This ensures that losses are minimised and that any inconvenience to customers is avoided,” he said.
Legal sources doubted how legal it was for Enemalta to base the charge on a calculation, saying consumers could easily demand actual consumption rather than pay an estimate.
mxuereb@timesofmalta.com