Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/345566
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 13 JULY 2014 5 MATTHEW VELLA THE ingeniousness of Enemalta in- stallers who had managed to disman- tle the allegedly 'tamper-proof' smart meters, had stumped suppliers Enel and Enemalta's top officials to the extent that rumours of the tamper- ing racket in 2012 were considered "not realistically possible". Peter Grima, Enemalta's former chief technical officer, said that En- emalta's senior officials did not be- lieve smart meters could be physical- ly tampered with, right up to 2013. "We were convinced by the suppli- ers, as they were, that the meters' cases could not be opened." Grima has denied having given re- assurances to an Auditor General's inquiry into the impenetrability of Enemalta's smart meters, when re- ports appeared in the Labour press of smart meters being 'hacked' for some €1,200. Grima testified before the Auditor General some time in April-May 2012. "The media reports were few, and we felt that the rumour was just that: we did not consider tampering a re- alistic possibility with all the seals the smart meter had, its tamper-proof switch, and the secure programming codes that had to be downloaded from the system for each meter," Grima said. But installers at Enemalta had found a way of heating up the me- ters' internal processor boxes, to open them up and then reseal them without leaving visible traces. Grima's role as CTO was however re-designated to executive head of energy generation in June 2012, and his previous duties on energy dis- tribution were hived off to another executive. He denies that his re- designation was in response to the Auditor General's report on smart meters, which was published in Au- gust 2012. "Under executive chairman Louis Giordimaina, the re-organisation balanced out responsibilities be- tween heads, and mirrored the trend in Europe which is to actually divide the energy distribution and gen- eration entities. This separation had nothing to do with the Auditor Gen- eral's report," he says. The CTO fended off claims by MaltaToday that his reassurances to the Auditor General on the security of smart meters, were made at a time when Enemalta and billing subsidi- ary ARMS were unable to correctly estimate how much of its generated energy was being accounted for. "In 2012 it was difficult to reconcile the billings of the year with the en- ergy generated: we knew what ener- gy generated we 'sent out', but since billings take place on six-monthly 'actual reading' basis, they could only be reconciled later on in the year," Grima said. Enemalta officials were then aware of the use of 'super magnets' to defy the smart meters. "In 2012 ARMS were experiencing billing problems. There was always an element of doubt as the billing process passed from the old to a new system: we could not spot the discrepancies of 2012 until much later in 2013." Grima said that Enemalta's top of- ficials were only later, in 2013, able to understand the patterns that led investigators to uncover the smart meter racket at play. "Since only Enemalta personnel were authorised to carry out work on the meters, they were equipped with the right tools to cover their tracks as normal work, and this made it very difficult to detect in the first place," Grima says. He denies having been ordered, under political pressure, to ignore rumours of tampering due to the €80 million project. "The anti-tamper protections in place made us believe that the cases could not be opened without them being broken apart." But it was also true at the time that only a small percentage of the meters were actually connected to ARMS's own back-end system, which meant that removing a smart meter would not send out an alarm unless it was communicated to the meter man- agement system. But Grima said that the meters would still trip and stop electricity from being distributed to the house- hold when the anti-tamper switch was activated. "This would require that the meter be reset through a special programming tool," he said. But he added that Enemalta install- ers could easily say they were work- ing on damages or replacing meters, and therefore request that the elec- tricity be reactivated. The breakthrough for Enemalta came from tip-offs that led to the under-reading meters. It was in 2013 that a pattern was identified, based on who the installers were, and when the meters were being replaced or reinstalled. "We didn't believe the meters could be tampered with or that the install- ers had actually managed to gain ac- cess into the meters; because even upon sending them to Enel, the latter were convinced the meters could not be tampered with until they opened them and examined them in their laboratory. "The fact that this was an 'inside' job also played a part as the installers were able to work inside the system to bypass the anti-tamper protection and cover their activities as normal installation or maintenance works. However the presence of a detailed audit trail eventually led to their dis- covery," Grima said. 'Smart meters were impenetrable, we didn't believe otherwise' Approved and issued by HSBC Bank Malta p.l.c.,116, Archbishop Street, Valletta VLT1444. OVERSEAS STARTS JUST OVER THE ROAD. If you have the ambition to grow your business, we have the expertise to help make that happen. So if you're thinking about expanding abroad, we will put you in touch with dedicated experts who could help you take the next steps. Discover how we could help your business. 7DONWRXVWRGD\DQGVHHKRZ\RXFDQEHQHÜWIURP Malta Trade for Growth incentives. www.hsbc.com.mt/overtheroad If you see it, we see it. Former Enemalta CTO Peter Grima