Negligence of Duty Found at Kansai Electric Unit

Tokyo, March 14 (Jiji Press)--A Kansai Electric Power Co. <9503> unit failed to measure the voltage of electricity it provides to households and submitted falsified data, the Japanese industry ministry said Tuesday.

The ministry gave Kansai Transmission and Distribution Inc., the unit based in the western city of Osaka, until March 22 to investigate the malpractice involving one of its offices and report the result.

Kansai Transmission and Distribution clearly violates the rules aimed at guaranteeing the quality of electricity, the ministry said. The ministry has asked nine other major Japanese power suppliers to check whether there are similar incidents.

The electricity business law obliges power transmission and distribution operators to measure the voltage and frequency of electricity they supply and store the data. The rules are designed to prevent unstable voltage from damaging home appliances.

The Kansai Transmission and Distribution office in question needs to measure the voltage of electricity by sampling about 120 households a year. But it has submitted falsified data to its headquarters office without actually measuring voltage, at least since fiscal 2020.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]