Hotline of power engineering specialists:
Staff of IDGC of Centre - Voronezhenergo performs systematic work to prevent and combat theft of electricity. By the end of 2013 the total amount of damage of the company avoided as a result of non-metered consumption, identified by the branch’s experts, was 14,699 million kilowatt-hours ( in terms of money for the end customer – 69.6 million rubles).
"In recent years, the number of cases of theft with the help of home-made metering devices and various accessories has increased. We reveal facts of theft of electricity and causing material damage to our company among the population and legal entities," stresses Deputy Director for Security of Voronezhenergo Konstantine Klepikov.
Last year, security personnel and the Office of electricity metering of the branch revealed facts of theft at three petrol filling stations of the region where it was done with the so -called "charged meters". "So, at one of the petrol filling stations in Ramonsky district the monthly energy consumption was about 3 thousand kilowatt-hours. We were immediately interested in it, because the actual consumption by "honest filling stations" is two and a half times higher," says a leading specialist of the security department Denis Bulatov. "Upon the site arrival, we determined the use of the meter with remote control, which allowed to disable the metering device as they needed. The amount of damage caused by these actions reached about 300 thousand rubles, which was fully reimbursed by the guilty party."
A year earlier, the grid company’s employees prevented cases of unmetered electricity consumption by LLC "Zhilkomenergo", a company serving the residential district in the village of Novaya Usman. Specially conducted examination revealed unsuitability of meters installed at the substation and boiler’s "Zhilkomenergo". The cause is interference in the internal circuit "in order to be able to remotely distort readings using technical means". The amount of damage was 7.4 million rubles. Law enforcement authorities prosecuted the theft.
Voronezhenergo warns unscrupulous power consumers of criminal liability for illegal manipulation with meters, which is provided, in particular, by paragraph 2 of Article 165 of the Criminal Code "Causing damage to property by fraud or breach of trust".