Hotline of power engineering specialists:
IDGC of Centre - Voronezhenergo division does systematic work on preventing and detecting non-metered electricity consumption. For 2014 in the service area of the company more than 1,300 such cases were identified, the amount of non-metered energy was over 9.9 million kWh.
To prevent power theft, Voronezhenergo held planned and unplanned raids, during which staff of Distribution Zones check operation of meters and inspect power lines for illegal connections. The most common types of violations related to non-metered and non-contractual power consumption are breaking the seal and different ways of influencing metering devices, replacement of electricity without notifying the company’s employees, concealing the fact of the device being out of order, as well as connection bypassing the meter or without a contract with a retail company.
If a case of theft is identified, and the offender does not have a contract for the power supply, then in this case an act of non-contractual consumption is drawn up. Payment is made by the consumer who committed the theft of electricity directly to the branch. In cases where offenders do not make payment by the due date, they will go under trial. For 2014 for such acts more than 3.5 million rubles were recovered, which corresponds to the volume of electricity of 1.02 million KWh.
If the contract for energy supply is available, but the customer decides to connect bypassing the meter or interfering with the operation of the metering device, the company’s specialists draws up acts of non-metered consumption and a power retail company charges the offender. During inspections in 2014 such acts were composed for more than 8.8 million KWh.
"The desire to circumvent the law severely hit the pockets of offenders. For example, if the fact of use of electric power without a supply contract is identified, then, in accordance with the law, the amount to be paid for it will be offered on the basis that the infringer consumed the maximum power around the clock and throughout the time since the last inspection of the grid section to the violation detection. In some cases this period may be up to 3 years. As a result, the desire to save money by illegal means can be very expensive," stressed the head of electricity metering of Voronezhenergo Andrey Romanenko.
In addition to violations of the law, theft of electricity adversely affects quality of power supply to consumers in good faith - non-metered load can lead to unstable operation of electric grid equipment, power surges and damage to appliances.
In order to ensure stable operation of the energy complex of the region and to avoid failures on lines, power engineers ask all consumers to report suspected cases of unauthorized connection via the phone of the around the clock hotline at 8-800-50-50-115.