Hotline of power engineering specialists:
For 9 months IDGC of Centre – Belgorodenergo division revealed over 1,000 facts of theft of electricity in the amount of 36.7 million rubles. 5.6 million rubles were recovered in courts from natural and legal persons, who committed non-contractual and non-metered consumption. Another 21.4 million was returned through the pre-trial process.
Power engineers detect non-metered consumption while carrying out inspections of condition of power grid facilities and commercial metering devices. Infringers try using a variety of tricks to "cheat" electricity meters in their favour, a full list of which has long been known and under special control of Belgorodenergo’s employees. Non-contractual consumption is more often found in the private sector and individual housing neighbourhoods where developers illegally, in the absence of a power supply contract, connect to the grid construction equipment, machines, tools and other electrical systems. The price of such a connection can be up to several tens or even hundreds of thousands of rubles, as non-metered resources are calculated based on the transmission capacity of the cable (overhead line wire). The total amount of stolen electricity thus has already exceeded 14 million kWh.
Special raids of power engineers and law enforcement agencies help quickly identify and eliminate illegal electricity consumption and, therefore, prevent associated congestion in grids and risks of non-standard emergency. As a result of one of them in a private house the fact of using the metering device with a built-in gadget not provided by the manufacturer was discovered. Calculation of non-metered consumption, as the law of the Russian Federation prescribes, was carried out on the basis of full capacity of power installations. As a result, the violator was charged just as much as he would have paid for five years and a fine of ten times higher than the amount that he would have to pay following the prescribed standards of electricity consumption.
The branch addresses to courts if the customer refuses to voluntarily compensate for the damage. One hundred and thirty three lawsuits to recover damages were filed this year to natural persons, 7 - to legal entities. In order to improve the actual enforcement of judgments in the region the practice of solidarity penalty cost for non-contractual consumption from both offenders themselves and their families was introduced, as well as citizens, living together with them, and not being owners of households. Power engineers regularly together with bailiffs visit troubled debtors systematically evading enforcement of judgments.
In addition to damages, the offender may incur administrative liability in accordance with Art. 7.19 of the Code of Administrative Offences of the Russian Federation or criminal imprisonment for up to 2 years (Art. 165 part 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). From 1 January 2016 penalties for persons with non-metered consumption were increased several times: for citizens - up to 15 thousand rubles, officials - up to 80 thousand rubles, legal entities - up to 200 thousand rubles. Since the beginning of the year the total amount of administrative penalties has already exceeded 100,000 rubles.
In addition to direct economic losses, unauthorized connection to the grid of high-power electrical installations and violation of operation of metering systems leads to above-norm increase of loading and reducing electricity quality, as a result of which household appliances often fail, as well as there is threat to life and health of people. of IDGC of Centre – Belgorodenergo division kindly requests to report facts of theft via the straight phone line of Belgorodenergo at 13-50 or at a district police station.