We would like to take this opportunity to introduce you to the International Utilities Revenue Protection Association. This group was founded in 1990 with the intent to bring utility companies together from around the world. Our mission is to identify measures to protect our companies from revenue losses associated with unauthorized use of service or fraudulent practices.
Since then, the organization has grown from a small regional group into an association that has worldwide participation IURPA has participation from the United States. Canada, United Kingdom, South America, Guam, France, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, the Philippines, China, the Caribbean and the Pacific Islands.
We are continually working to introduce representation from new areas. Included in the IURPA family is a large number of vendor representatives with vast resources to help combat the growing problems of revenue losses suffered from alternative access to utility products. These vendors have been responsive to the needs expressed by our members. They constantly strive to improve the products and services they deliver. These vendors have committed themselves to the IURPA membership to “identify solutions” and “partner for improvements”.
The structure of the IURPA group consists of officers and directors who are elected by the Board of Directors. Membership in the organization requires only that an interested member be a utility employee whose principle activity involves recovery and/or the protection of revenues.. The cost of membership is $75 dollars US. Each utility designates one member as a voting member to participate in the annual election of officers.
Vendors become partners in IURPA as a result of their participation in the annual conference. The vendors select a volunteer to participate on the IURPA conference planning committee. The rep insures that the vendor interest and needs are accommodated.
IURPA produces a newsletter that is sent to all members of the international and regional groups. A master mailing list is managed to insure that a maximum number of utilities are reached. The newsletter provides information on current events, news developing around effective revenue protection activities, upcoming regional conferences, and advertisements from vendors.
In 1995, IURPA embarked on an ambitious undertaking to collect data from utilities around the world regarding their revenue protection programs. A benchmark survey has been published for the participating utilities to use in measuring the effectiveness of their programs with others. The survey contains data from some of the top one hundred fifteen utilities in the world. IURPA is committed to providing these sources of detail that will strengthen the revenue protection programs.
In 2016, the Electric Power Research Institute reached out to IURPA members and other industry professionals to create a Guidebook for Revenue Protection for use by utilities utilizing and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). The input and experience from our IURPA members was invaluable to the completion of this project.
IURPA represents a vast resource of remarkable people with valuable information. We congratulate our members and vendors for making IURPA the success it has become and welcome our new members and vendors to participate in the growth and prosperity of the International Utilities Revenue Protection Association.