One Ukrainian nuclear power plant works for free
The theft of electricity in Ukraine has assumed an unprecedented scale. First Vice Premier Oleh Dubyna has announced that last year power grids had lost 33.7 billion kW/h of unscheduled electricity, with half this amount being siphoned off. The Ukrainian energy sector annually loses more than UAH 1.5 billion due to grid pilferage. This means, by way of comparison, that one of this country’s nuclear stations fully works to meet the requirements of shadow consumers and to inflict power losses.
In most cases, electric power is stolen by the populace. Natalia Kostyshyna, chief of the technical inspection department at the National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), notes that electricity is being pilfered mostly in villages, as well as in southern cities, where, as a rule, there are no power meters. Even if there are meters, people often resort to various ruses, for example, setting the meter’s required readings by hand.
The group of “thieves” also comprises gas-deprived populated areas. In those places, apartments are often heated with makeshift electric ovens made by the inhabitants themselves. Such people are not afraid of electricity bills, for most of them have long been using all kinds of devices to make meters turn in the right direction. “In the gas-starved villages and towns of Ukraine people are warmed at night by electricity alone,” Ms. Kostyshyna says. By day, they use electric heaters more gingerly because the mains cannot bear the load.
Another notable category of shadow consumers is so-called small business. The proprietors of kiosks in provincial towns often connect their so-called supermarkets to the mains by simply bribing the electrician. However, this kind of violation is usually quickly spotted by regional power supply inspectors. According to Ms. Kostyshyna, it is far more difficult to spot electricity pilferage in the villages with a lot of private houses. “They just don’t let the inspectors in: now everybody knows what private property is, so you can keep anybody out. Besides, if such an individual has been disconnected, he will get connected by himself three days later. You can’t possibly make an inspector stand by him every day,” the NERC technical expert says.
If pilferage has been spotted, the house or apartment owner is fined. Under the new version of the Criminal Code, this offense also entails criminal liability. But regional (oblenerho) electric supply companies try to avoid this. There have only been isolated attempts to put energy thieves behind bars when they beat up the company inspectors. Incidentally, this is happening more and more often. Yet, the risk oblenerho inspectors run does yield some results. Every inspection brings unscheduled power losses down by a third on average.
The National Electricity Regulatory Commission expects the artful dodgers to face hard times in the near future. The oblenerhos will be more actively spotting the acts of pilferage. This being an expensive job, the NERC has already drawn up plans to raise funds by increasing charges. “The investment commitments of all regional electricity supply companies for which we are raising charges include expenses for cutting unscheduled losses of electricity,” Ms. Kostyshyna said. According to her, the privatized oblenerhos maintain more effective contact with the populace. They have understood that pilferage of electric power, already traditional in Ukrainian villages, can cost them very dearly. On the contrary, most of the state-run oblenerhos continue to lavish favors on shadow customers, sometimes including relatively large private enterprises. The NERC does not check whether they do so due to mismanagement or for any other considerations. As a result, all this adds up to oblenerho losses, although it would seem that companies should be interested in seeing the losses reduced. For some reason, this rule does not always work in the case of state-run oblenerhos.
This, it seems, has caused a paradoxical statistical fact. By 2002, the Ukrainian power sector had begun to steadily increase output for the first time in the past ten years, with the sales of electrical power actually dwindling. In other words, the flow of charged particles somehow evaporates halfway between the power plants and the consumers.
