The Ministry Of Trade Reveals That 14 Million Meters Of Electricity Have Expired, The People Are Losing?

Capture the screen of the Metrology Director of the Ministry of Trade, Rusmin Amin. in a virtual discussion. (Mery Handayani / VOI)

JAKARTA - The Ministry of Trade revealed that as many as 14 million electricity meters in customers' homes have expired or have expired. This out-of-date condition makes recording of household electrical power consumption incorrect. This condition is clearly detrimental to PT PLN (Persero) and also the community.

Metrology Director of the Ministry of Trade, Rusmin Amin, said regarding the expired electricity meter, his party had sent a letter to the Ministry of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN) and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM).

"We see that the number of kWh meters that have expired is around 14 million. Quite a lot and this in my opinion does not provide certainty from the customer side whether their measuring instrument is still suitable for use or not," said Rusmin in a virtual discussion entitled ' During the Pandemic, Electricity Bills Rise: Consumers Miserable, How is Consumers' Fate, Monday, June 15th.

Rusmin said his party had conducted a sampling test for electricity meters in West Java and Banten in 2011. This test was for second-class mechanical kWh meters with a total sample size of 1,278 meter units that were more than 10 years old. The result was that 62 percent or as many as 792 units of electricity meters did not pass the test.

Furthermore, Rusmin said, the potential losses due to kWh meters have not been rewritten, namely as many as 349 units of meters or 56.8 percent of the error value and causing PLN losses by an average of 17.46 percent (PLN losses).

"As many as 266 units have caused losses to the public because the recording was imprecise. Consumers lost 15.84 percent," he explained.

For your information, there are two types of electric meters, namely electronic and mechanical, each of which has a different calibration period. For electronic meter stands that are commonly used by prepaid customers with a tenor of 15 years. Meanwhile, the mechanical meter stand used by postpaid customers has a ten-year tenor.

PLN Admits There is an Expired Electric Meter

Director of Commerce and Customer Management Bob Saril acknowledged that there was a meter stand that had expired. He said PLN was taking steps to replace a new meter rather than re-calibrating it. This is because budget constraints have made the replacement process carried out gradually.

"We prefer to change it gradually due to the limited investment allocation for this meter," said Bob.

Likewise, PLN Senior Executive Vice President of Business & Customer Service Yuddy Setyo Wicaksono said he would gradually replace the electricity meter in each customer's house.

"We will do the replacement of the meter gradually. We are pursuing the replacement of the meters because from our calculations, replacing the new metean is more efficient than recalculating it. This is our program, we have prepared for that," said Yudi.

Yudi said he would replace the customer meter with a smart meter to make it more accurate. "We are preparing to replace it with a smart meter, which takes years. The smart meter is about 7 years for all the 79 million existing meters in PLN customers," he explained.