Hotline of power engineering specialists:
Power engineers of IDGC of Centre - Belgorodenergo division held a training seminar for representatives of housing and utility offices of Stary Oskol. About 30 executives of management companies and homeowners’ associations took part in it. The topic of the seminar was issues of effective detection of places of non-metered electricity consumption in multi-apartment blocks.
"Damage from illegal consumption, or simply theft of electricity, for the first four months of the year amounted to 2.5 million kWh in the region," Farit Galiullin, the deputy chief of Starooskolsky Distribution Zone of Belgorodenergo, announced opening the seminar. "In general, in the region 196 facts of theft of electricity by consumers were identified. Bona fide payers suffer from this, as a rule: in the private sector this threatens to overload the line, short circuits and fires, in apartment buildings - direct loss to bona fide payers."
Turning directly to the topic of the seminar, Farit Galiullin noted that the multi-apartment fund of Starooskolsky urban district consumes 28% of all electricity supplied to consumers, that is 171 million kWh a year. Of 989 apartment houses in Stary Oskol, almost all are equipped with modern public house electricity meters that record the amount of electricity supplied to each house. The task of homeowners is to monitor the account and not allow leaks, since the electricity of common house needs is distributed within the limits of the standard approved by the regional authorities, in proportion to all apartment owners. In houses where not all tenants conscientiously and honestly pay for consumed electricity, the payment for the common house needs is usually much higher than where they pay fairly. If the amount of payment exceeds the standard, the population is transferred to the normative payment, and the management company will have to compensate for the difference. Thus, theft can lead to losses of management companies, which means that they are primarily interested in identifying sources of losses.
Regular checks and raids allow to identify facts of theft. For example, in the Starooskolsky managing company "Topol" checks of meters with taking control readings are carried out monthly. According to Managing Director Sergey Nenuzhenko, this is the most effective way to protect against losses of electricity in internal networks. However, not all residents of Stary Oskol high-rise buildings equipped their apartments with modern meters. As a whole, in the district 5.5 thousand electric meters are obsolete and are not suitable for billing, being a potential source of losses. As a master of the management company LLC "Housing department 8/1" Valentina Pozenchuk noted, in some high-rise buildings electricity meters dating back to 1958-1960 were installed. They are less protected from external influences, so it is easier to interfere with their work to "adjust" readings.
Farit Galiullin also talked about the most common ways of interfering with the metering system: from the mechanical impact on the case of the device to changing the scheme of its connection and installing some foreign devices that lead to distortion of data on the amount of electricity consumed. One of the most common ways is the impact on the device of powerful magnets. The method of combating such magnets is an antimagnetic seal. In case of exposure to a magnetic field, the seal is destroyed, which clearly indicates theft. In 2018, Belgorodenergo will equip with special seals with magnetically sensitive elements 144,490 consumers’ points. Including in Belgorod, almost 19 thousand will be installed, in Starooskolsky district - more than 16.5 thousand.
Another effective method to combat losses is to equip all apartments in the house with meters for an automated electricity metering system (AMR). An example of such an approach in Stary Oskol is multi-apartment house No. 38 in the Korolev micro-district. After installing "smart" meters here, the loss of electricity in internal networks decreased from 35 to 5%.
The power engineers also reminded the seminar participants of the responsibility, which is provided by the legislation for illegal energy consumption. In case of detection of theft of electricity, the violator not only compensates for the damage to the power grid company, but is also brought to criminal or administrative responsibility with payment of a fine. It should be noted that since 1 January 2016, Russia has tightened administrative responsibility for unauthorized connection to grids and use of electricity, as well as violation of the rules for use of electricity and rules for construction and operation of energy-consuming plants. In particular, the amount of fines for unauthorized connection and use of electricity has been increased. For citizens, the fine is up to 15 thousand rubles, for officials - up to 80 thousand, for legal entities - up to 200 thousand rubles.
Bona fide consumers, who regularly pay bills for electricity, suffer greatly from criminal acts of violators: because of thefts, there are voltage fluctuations in the grid, household appliances are out of order, the probability of failures, fires and accidents increases.
