Hotline of power engineering specialists:
The court collected more than 2.7 million rubles from an entrepreneur - the owner of a milk processing shop in Korochansky district of the Belgorod region for non-contractual electricity consumption. The claimant in the case was IDGC of Centre - Belgorodenergo division.
In the course of a raid last April to curb the theft of electricity power engineers of Korochansky Distribution Zone discovered unauthorized connection of a consumer’s power installations to the 0.4 kV switch control cabinet of the grid company. The cable with which the connection was made was in the ground and was not listed in the documents on the grid connection.
On this fact, an act was drawn up indicating the period of unauthorized connection and losses calculated according to Resolution of the Government of the Russian Federation of 04.05.2012 No. 442, based on the cable transmission capacity and unregulated prices for electrical energy (power) (due to the fact that it was found in a room intended for commercial activities). As a result, the volume of non-contractual consumption amounted to 439,085 kWh, which is equivalent to more than 2.7 million rubles in monetary terms.
After the violator refused to compensate the damage caused to the company voluntarily, the branch filed a lawsuit to recover the cost of the identified amount of non-contractual consumption to the Sverdlovsky District Court of the city of Belgorod, which satisfied the claim in full. The Belgorod Regional Court of 19.02.2019 left the decision of the Sverdlovsky District Court unchanged.
The power engineers remind that the legislation provides for severe punishment in relation to energy thieves. In case of detection of theft of electricity, the violator not only compensates for the damage to the electric grid company, but also is brought to criminal or administrative liability with the payment of a fine. It should be noted that since 1 January 2016, Russia has tightened its administrative responsibility for unauthorized connection to grids and the use of electricity, as well as violating the rules for using electricity and the rules for constructing and operating energy-consuming installations. In particular, the size of fines for unauthorized connection and use of electricity have been increased.
Conscientious consumers who regularly pay their electricity bills suffer greatly from criminal actions of thieves: due to theft, power surges occur, household appliances break down, probability of failures, fires and accidents increases.
Messages about theft of electricity and equipment around the clock are received by calling the direct line of IDGC of Centre at 8-800-50-50-115 or 13-50.
