Azerishig Disavows Accusations of Falsification of Meter Readings

Baku / 12.08.18 / Turan: The company Azerishig on Saturday invited journalists and multimedia expert Osman Gunduz to dissuade the public from the widespread opinion about the fraud in calculating the debt of subscribers for the used electricity. For July, when there was abnormal heat in Azerbaijan, customers received bills with double-triple excess of the payment amount. The citizens are particularly outraged with the fact that high electricity bills came even to those who spent the whole of July or part of the month not in their urban apartments.

Osman Gunduz and other participants of the meeting shared their information on the meeting in Azerishig. The representative of IA Turan was not invited, therefore we inform the readers about the impressions of the participants in the meeting.

OJSC Azerishig does not consider itself guilty of deliberately inflating the cost of payment for electricity. Representatives of the company cited known facts of high energy consumption by domestic air-conditioners and refrigerators during hours when the air temperature was especially high. Deputy Director of the Electricity Sales Department Vugar Nabibayli explained that the operation of one air conditioner for 10 hours daily costs the customer 70 manat per month. "At temperatures above 40 degrees, the load on equipment is increased by a factor of 1.5. If the equipment operates at a temperature of 25-30 degrees, it consumes 2.5 kilowatts of energy per hour, and at a temperature of 40 degrees, electricity consumption can be 3.5 kilowatts per hour," Nabibayli said. He invited the disgruntled customers to the Azerishig complaint department, where within 10 working days the specialists will deal with their problems.

When calculating the cost of household appliances, it is necessary to know that up to 300 kilowatts of used energy per year are calculated at a price of 7 gapik per kilowatt-hour, and spending energy above this social limit is 11 gapik per kilowatt-hour.

Osman Gunduz is pleased with the fact that Azerishig is ready to communicate with the public and clarify emerging issues. But the fact is that, the representatives of the JSC did not answer any of the really urgent and socially important questions. The guests were not introduced to the central server, the billing system, and other technical issues important for clarifying the problem. Representatives of the company did not prove that the meter readings are artificially not overstated from a single center. Moreover, it turned out that "smart" electronic meters can be controlled from the computer center of the OJSC, change the amount of payment, and stop the supply of electricity. It turns out that if they want to and a command comes from above, the company can affect the meter readings.

Azerishig simultaneously sells electricity, changes the consumption of customers, installs meters, sends information from the meters to its server center and counts the accumulated data. Software and installation programs are also produced in this JSC. All this should be subjected to an independent audit, state and public control over what is going on in OJSC Azerishig should be strengthened, and for this the company should create conditions. Only after that there will be confidence that subscribers are not deceived. In the meantime, the main result of the meeting was confirmation of the fact that one or several people could intervene in the system of "smart counters", data traffic and counting of customer debts by changing the readings of the devices. It is unclear why we should need these "smart meters", if their application reduces the reliability of the payment data system of Azerishig," O. Gunduz concluded.

Doubts about the decency of the electricians did not weaken, but intensified. In developed countries, in the presence of general doubt about the company's activities, the prosecutor's office intervenes in the situation and conducts an investigation. But in our conditions our citizens proved to be guilty - even those who received high electricity bills in the month when they were absent from home. ----0-