Hotline of power engineering specialists:
Recently, in the territory of the Smolensk region, cases of replacement of individual meters by residential customers living in dwelling houses have been increasingly registered, without prior notification of the supplier of last resort with which the consumer has concluded an energy supply contract, or a grid company about the forthcoming dismantling of the meter.
IDGC of Centre - Smolenskenergo division reminds that violation of the integrity of signs of visual control, the breakage of seals previously installed by the grid company on the meter (incoming switch, metering cabinet, etc.) is non-metered consumption (unauthorized interference with the meter operation). This entails the application to the user of penalties expressed in the recalculation for a period starting from the date of installation of the said seals or devices, but not more than 3 months, based on the volume calculated on the basis of the norms for the consumption of the relevant utilities with an incremental factor of 10. The basis for applying the sanctions to the consumer is p. 81 (11) of Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation of 06.05.2011 No. 354 "On the provision of public services to owners and users of premises s in multi-family houses and apartment buildings". Commissioning of the metering device installed in violation of legal requirements (according to the current legislation) will also be made at the expense of the consumer’s funds.
To avoid this, prior to the replacement of the electricity metering device with the use of services of outside organizations, it is necessary to notify IDGC of Centre - Smolenskenergo division (grid company) or SmolenskAtomenergoSbyt (the supplier of last resort) about the planned activities.
To date, Smolenskenergo has all technical means to detect and prevent various methods of stealing electricity. In addition, many modern electricity meters have the so-called "electronic seal" that records a fact of the meter’s exposure to an external magnetic field, allowing not only to confirm the fact of interference in the operation of the electricity meter, but also to record the actions of dishonest consumers in an attempt to steal electricity.
Specialists of the branch constantly reveal new episodes of non-metered and non-contractual electricity consumption in the region, which is an administrative and criminally punishable offense.
