Electric Power Company of Serbia to install plastic seals on power meters - anti-theft protection

In order to reduce huge losses, which, due to poor technical condition of the network and stealing of electric power, exceeds amount of € 50 million on annual basis, Electric Power Company of Serbia (EPS) prepares several innovations. One of them is installation of plastic seals on the power meters, instead of present lead ones, which can be "loosened" easily, i.e. "tuned" and, in that way, the electricity can be stolen.

Few years ago, Electric Power Company of Croatia introduced plastic seals. Electric Power of Republic of Srpska started to do the same thing in 2004.

In the scope of "pilot project", those seals were installed on the power meters of certain number of consumers in Vrnjačka Banja. As soon as plastic seals were introduced in Republic of Srpska, power losses were cut from 21 to 15%. Therefore, "Elektrodoboj" has recently installed 100,000 of these devices, of which price is 39 CSD. On some territories of Federation of BiH, local power supply companies install even 2 plastic seals on each power meter! Recently processed report on control on territory of Power Supply Company Belgrade, carried out between January 1, 2004 and January 1, 2005 was, according to estimates of the management of EPS, more than discouraging. At the moment, 9,248 consumers are being checked and 1,764 thefts have been discovered so far, which represents 17.6% of total amount!