On Monday, a deadly fire ripped through a neighborhood in Tambora, West Jakarta, killing four and destroying 20 homes. Investigators believe the fire was started in a clothing store that was stealing electricity from the power grid through an illegal connection that released sparks and set the clothes on fire.
State electricity company PLN said that an estimated 42,000 of its customers in Jakarta steal electricity in some way.
It is one of the things that affects our limits on power and energy measurements,” said PLN communications manager Aries Dwianto as quoted by Tempo.
However, Aries noted that that number is quite small compared to the total number of PLN customers in Jakarta, which is about 5 million.
But the PLN manager said that illegal electricity consumption was often pinpointed as the cause of fires, especially in slum areas. He said that cables and plugs that do not fit Indonesia’s national electrical standard often created sparks that ignited fires.
PLN also estimates that they lose about Rp 1.5 billion in revenue each month due to illegal electricity connections.
