PETALING JAYA, July 24 — PKR will launch an online poll to press Tenaga Nasional Berhad (TNB) to finally address allegations its new digital power meters are behind a sudden increase in consumers’ electricity bills.

Announcing the campaign beginning next week for aggrieved consumers to register their grouses with TNB, PKR federal lawmaker Wong Chen said the party hoped to collect enough responses to convince the utility to hire independent testers to verify claims against their new meters.

“TNB has taken the position that the higher electricity bills are due to faulty analogue meters... However, it is not unreasonable to believe the new digital meters may be overly-sensitive to current flows and this may be the reason for an increase in electricity bills,” the Kelana Jaya MP said.

In an apparent bid to make the decision easier for the power firm, Wong said consumers were offering to bear part of the costs for the testing.

“Several members of the public have expressed a willingness to pay small fee of RM20 to ascertain the accuracy of their domestic digital meters,” Wong said.

“Ultimately, such a verification process will ensure fairness to the customer and increase confidence in TNB.”

TNB previously denied that the new digital meters with which it was replacing the older analogue readers were causing consumers’ bills to spike upwards.

Responding to the complainst last year, TNB said the greater accuracy of the new meters was the reason for consumers “perception” of increased power costs.

Prior to the general election, the firm was also instructed to suspend the installation of the meters by the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water. It is unclear if the directive is still in effect.

Today. Wong also said the utility has never convincingly removed suspicions over the meters’ reliability.

Last year, the PKR lawmaker also linked Noor Asiah Mahmood, the sister of former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi’s late first wife Tun Endon Mahmood, to one of the four firms supplying the meters to TNB.

At the press conference also attended by PKR vice president Datuk Chua Jui Meng and Wangsa Maju MP Dr Tan Kee Kwong, the action committee said it will compile the results of the online poll to be presented to TNB once sufficient numbers are reached.