Hotline of power engineering specialists:
Employees of IDGC of Centre – Belgorodenergo division conducted a raid to identify facts of non-contractual and non-metered electricity consumption in the territory of Starooskolsky urban district. The power engineers together with representatives of the administration and the media checked the consumer meters, discovered unauthorized dismantling of the meter, unauthorized connection to the grid, as well as obvious interference in the operation of electricity meters.
Power engineers often encounter illegal consumption while conducting inspections of the technical condition of energy facilities and commercial metering. Such facts are revealed both in the private sector and in the housing estates of individual construction, where developers unauthorizedly, in the absence of a power supply contract, connect construction equipment, machines, tools and other electrical installations to networks. Only in March the Stary Oskol power engineers found 15 incidents of non-metered consumption, and this work continues. In the focus there are about 10 thousand meters installed by legal entities, and 120 thousand - with natural persons.
"Theft of electricity is an urgent issue for the company, because losses in the grids ultimately fall in the tariff for all consumers," explained Farit Galiullin, the head of the electricity metering and optimization of losses department of Starooskolsky Distribution Zone of IDGC of Centre – Belgorodenergo division. "Theft is wide-scale in the private sector: someone cannot or does not want to pay, but someone deliberately interferes with the work of meters, makes a hidden wiring. It is not easy to detect, but we detect violations with the help of special devices. The worst thing is that connections are made by an artisanal method: loose contacts, lack of necessary grounding. Ultimately, all this can lead to a fire, or people passing by can get under voltage."
Since January of this year, the rules for calculating the amount of electricity consumed in violation of current legislation, with respect to consumer-citizens have become much tougher. Now, if there is a fact of interference in the operation of the meter, the cost of the stolen energy is calculated on the basis of the standard approved by the regional authorities with the use of an increasing factor of 10, and the calculation period can reach three months. The amount of payment can be tens or even hundreds of thousands of rubles, and if it comes to court, then, in addition to the costs for electricity, the citizen will have to reimburse also the legal costs. In the past year, according to the facts of non-contractual and non-metered electricity consumption, the branch collected almost 39 million rubles. So, it’s much cheaper to comply with the law: install the meter and pay for the electricity consumed by law.
"We are all in the same boat: suppliers of electricity, water, heat," says Alexander Arkatov, the head of the department for life support and development of Starooskolsky urban district. "Underpayments lead to a cash gap, and organizations do not receive money that could go to the development of grids, including in the areas of individual housing construction. This is a big problem that must be dealt with. We carry out an active claim-related work and in 95% of cases compensate for losses."
Raids pass through the whole region. Over the past year, the energy company identified 1,431 cases of interference in the operation of meters and unauthorized connection to grids and recovered 39 million rubles from violators. In Starooskolsky urban district for this period there were 165 such cases for the amount of more than 5 million rubles.