Hotline of power engineering specialists:
IDGC of Centre summed up the implementation in the first half of 2014 of activities to curb non-metered and non-contractual electricity consumption in the regions of its service area.
During some large-scale raid work of staff of Distribution Zones and departments of electricity metering of branches of IDGC of Centre together with specialists of security units acts on 3,837 cases of non-metered (connections to bus wires of 0.4 kV and lead-ins in the home, equipment of hidden entries) and 1,767 cases of non-contractual power consumption were identified and drawn up. The total amount of the identified non-metered and non-contractual electricity consumption in the service area of IDGC of Centre during the period amounted to about 55 million kWh, the amount of damage - more than 143.5 million rubles.
Particular attention was given to work with problem customers. Their check was preceded with thorough preparation and briefing of participants of the raids by specialist of security subdivisions of the branches. As part of the search operations employees of the regional FSB department and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia were involved to participate in the raids in some cases.
The power engineers took measures to compensate for the damage to the company. In the first six months of 2014 about 90 million rubles were compensated by unscrupulous consumers in court and pre-trial on the facts of the non-contractual and non-metered consumption. The rest of the debt will be levied from offenders in a mandatory way in court, with laying all court costs on the perpetrators under the current legislation. Now experts of IDGC of Centre are doing claims-related work on all the facts of non-contractual electricity consumption. In addition, in relation to such consumers law enforcement agencies are carrying out inspections pursuant to Art. Art. 144-145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation for deciding whether to initiate criminal proceedings under Article 165 of the Criminal Code ("Causing damage to property by fraud or breach of trust").
"As a result of illegal connections to the electricity lines the company receives less funding, which was planned to be for the reconstruction and improvement of the reliability of the electric grid complex, commissioning of additional capacity. Such actions are fraught with problems for unscrupulous consumers themselves, because they may have their consequences, not only electric shock, fire, failure of expensive power equipment, but also lawsuits. And in some cases, violators may be subject to administrative and even criminal responsibility," underlines Head of the Department of Economic Security and Anti-corruption of IDGC of Centre Sergey Sharapov.
Raids to curb cases of illegal grid connection, non-contractual and non-metered electricity consumption are conducted in all branches of IDGC of Centre and other subsidiaries of JSC "Russian Grids" regularly, as part of the system, designed to reduce costs, gain control over the implementation of the action plan to reduce the risks of uncontrolled increase of the load on the electric grid infrastructure.