Hotline of power engineering specialists:
Employees of IDGC of Centre – Belgorodenergo division together with representatives of the administration of Valuisky district, the police and the media conducted a raid to identify facts of non-contractual and non-metered electricity consumption.
In the field of view of power engineers of Valuisky Distribution Zone there are 33 thousand electricity meters, of which 3.5 thousand are installed at legal entities’, 6 thousand - in apartment buildings, the rest - in the private sector. Under suspicion, in the first place, there are consumers who regularly impede the access of electricians to meters, whose power consumption is lower than those of similar activities, as well as those who have a large gap between the volume of consumed and paid electricity. Among the most common are interference in the work of metering devices and connection bypassing the meter.
As a result of the check, two facts of intervention were discovered - in the form of a broken seal and the absence of a terminal cover. Violators received instructions and acts on the recalculation of the consumed energy using a 10-fold multiplying factor.
"In such cases, we are often told that they did not know about the violations, did not see the absence of seals or terminal covers," says the deputy chief of Valuisky Distribution Zone Sergey Saenko. "I want to emphasize that the whole responsibility for the safety and integrity of the meter lies entirely with the consumer, and ignorance of the law does not absolve from responsibility. The best option is to follow the meter’s readings and not to interfere with its operation, because a small seemingly saving, will turn out to be a big loss."
For legal entities the amount of electricity is recalculated according to the characteristics of the connection: the capacity specified in the contract is multiplied by the business hours of the firm. In this case, the amount of payment will increase by several times. In 2016, in Valuisky district 50 facts of interference in the operation of meters were revealed. The total volume of additional electric power was 215 thousand kWh. Consumers paid about 670 thousand rubles.
In addition, 26 facts of non-contractual consumption were recorded last year - connection to networks bypassing the meter. The total amount of stolen electricity amounted to 474 thousand kWh, the power company lost 1.5 million rubles. At the same time, more than 1 million 170 thousand rubles have already been compensated by consumers.
In the village of Khmelevtse power engineers before the raid uncovered lays of wires twice, but without witnesses. Fresh lays indicate that for the owner of the house this is a matter of minutes.
"If there is no fact of non-contractual consumption, but there is such an opportunity, we must still visit in the evening or on the day off. In raids many things happened," says Sergey Sayenko and shows the video from the phone, as a man right at the power engineers pulls off the laid wire. As a result, this video cost him a 100 thousand rubles fine and the recalculation of electricity consumption.
"The search for unauthorized connections is of paramount importance, because it is a security issue," says Mikhail Osipov, a chief specialist of the housing and communal services and transport section of the construction and architecture office of the Valuisky district administration. "Any interference in the operation of the network can lead to a fire or electric shock, as well as fraught with voltage drops and, as a result, the failure of household appliances."
An effective measure of combating violators is installation on the facades of "suspicious" households of control electricity meters. After that, any manipulation with your meter does not make sense. Over the past year and a half 55 such meters were installed in Valuisky district. With their help, we "found" 240 thousand kilowatts per month, which is comparable to the consumption of 60 five-story buildings or 20 stores. Consumers start paying at times more. So, the energy consumption in the shopping centre increased five-fold, in the bakery – by eight times, from 3 to 24 thousand kilowatts per month. With such meters we can track readings for every half an hour and a sharp drop in consumption immediately raises additional questions and verification. There is also a general picture: how much similar stores, production halls and sites should consume. The behavior of consumers is changing: they turn off extra light, use air-conditioning more economically.
Intervention in the unified energy system affects the quality of electricity supply to all consumers and exerts an additional burden on tariff growth. The best option is to follow the meter’s reading and not to interfere with its work, since a small saving turns out to be a big fine. Since this year, when revealing cases of unauthorized interference in metering devices, the cost of stolen electricity is calculated using a 10-fold multiplying factor, and the calculation period can reach three months. If the fact of unauthorized connection to networks is identified, the consumer is expected not only to recover the non-metered consumption, but also administrative or even criminal liability. For ordinary citizens, the fine will be 15 thousand rubles, for officials - 80 thousand rubles, for legal entities - 200 thousand rubles. In the case of a crime committed by prior conspiracy, or by an organized group of persons, if the damage is calculated as a particularly large one, then it is punishable by imprisonment for up to 5 years.
Raids on detection of facts of non-metered consumption of electricity pass through the whole region.
