THE JUICE SLEUTH.

• Author: Martin, Edward
• Position: David Lasater of Carolina Power and Light Co. checks for stolen electricity - Statistical Data Included

How electric companies try to make sure it's lights out for thieves who purloin $120 million a year of power.

Motionless and unblinking, the Rottweiler stares over folded paws. David Lasater rests his arms on the wheel of his gray Chevrolet Lumina and stares back through the windshield. "Look at that," he says, leaning forward. "He doesn't even look like he's breathing." He taps the horn. The dog, his tan sides barely rising and falling in the afternoon sun, doesn't flinch.

Lasater glances around. The mobile home sits on a sloping, washed-out lot with vines creeping up the wheels of a rusty Pontiac. Heavy towels drape the windows. The trailer is supposedly vacant, but directly above the Rottweiler, an air-conditioner pokes through the wall, and on it sits a pair of boots caked with fresh mud. "That's not right," Lasater muses. "Besides, why would the dog be here?" He shuts the engine off and cocks his ear to tell if the air-conditioner is running. The Nash County woods east of Lizard Lick and south of Zebulon are silent. Lasater exhales softly. "I'd sure like to look around back." He starts the engine and inches the car forward.

Suddenly, the 120-pound Rottweiler lunges, slamming into the driver-side door just as Lasater gets the window up. As he shifts into reverse, the dog races around the car, and leaps again, locking its jaws on the plastic grill. He plants his legs like a waterskier, and for a moment, is dragged in the car's wake as Lasater backs out of the yard.

So ends a skirmish in a high-stakes, multimillion-dollar war few ever witness.

Thieves steal between $60 million and $120 million of electricity a year, Tar Heel utilities estimate. Lasater is Carolina Power & Light Co.'s electricity detective -- formally, revenue-protection investigator. He's good but not foolhardy.

"Some places I just don't go," he says, grinning as the Lumina sits idling back on the main road and the Rottweiler paces in front of the mobile home. "If this guy's stealing, he's welcome to it one more day."

This fall, Lasater is being joined by four newly hired investigators at CP&L as the Raleigh-based company expands its efforts. Some other North Carolina utilities are doing likewise. Gastonia, for example, has passed a tough local ordinance against power theft, on top of existing state law.

Like shoplifting, purloined power at first glance appears to be petty theft. But it's volume that turns it into larceny on a grand scale. "We'll have about $6.6 billion in sales statewide this year," says Ben Turner, rate engineer at the N.C. Utilities Commission in Raleigh. "A little loss goes a long ways."

Electricity theft isn't new, but as sales have climbed into the multibillion-dollar reaches, the potential for large returns from relatively small investments in resources like Lasater and sophisticated bill-monitoring computer programs -- Greenville recovered $300,000 from thieves last year -- is giving theft detection new energy.

Another shoplifting comparison is that everybody pays. Experts at the Edison Electric Institute, the Washington-based research backbone of America's

utilities, say 1% to 2% of all power is...