"Will you pay for everything?": the government heard residents of non-gasified areas

In February, residents of private homes in the Irkutsk region began to receive electricity bills, where the calculation is carried out according to new energy consumption standards and many payments have doubled. But it turned out that the Angara region with its problems is not unique — giant bills shocked residents of other regions even with a high level of gasification.

Accordingly, over the past week, State Duma deputies have been actively discussing the controversial decree of the Russian government, which introduced uniform ranges. And lo and behold! This polyphony was heard, reports IRCITY.RU .

The very resolution that caused the fuss came out on November 1, 2024. According to it, in all regions where there are diphthariffs, uniform energy consumption standards have been introduced:

the first ("preferential") — up to 3900 kWh per month;

the second — from 3901 to 6000 kWh per month;

the third is everything above 6001 kWh.

In the Irkutsk region, where at that time the first standard was limited to 25 thousand kWh, experts of the Chamber of Control and Accounts estimated that payments could grow two to three times. This was also pointed out by ordinary residents of private homes who created a petition on the Internet and demanded the abolition of unfair diftariffs.

The problem was aggravated by the fact that in reality no one in the region — neither the authorities nor the energy supply companies — knows exactly the number of houses on electric heating. Although, of course, it was clarified that more than 220 thousand people could fall under the new regulations.

Nevertheless, the government of the Irkutsk region stated that the new standards do not take into account the specifics of the regions, which cannot be equated to one comb.

The Angara region, together with the authorities of Khakassia, appealed to the Ministry of Energy and the Federal Antimonopoly Service, and as a result, the Russian government introduced an increasing coefficient of 1.8, which can be used to calculate the consumption of residential buildings with electric heating installations, but only in those regions where the gasification level is less than 5%.

In the Irkutsk region, we recall, it was estimated at 2%. Additionally, Governor Igor Kobzev decided to equate urban residents of private houses with rural ones.

By the way, the coefficient 1.8 is applied not only in Irkutsk Region, but also in the Trans-Baikal Territory, Buryatia, the Republic of Tuva and Khakassia, Murmansk, Amur, Magadan regions and the Jewish Autonomous Region.

In order for people to be able to get these peculiar "benefits", they were required to prove electric heating. To do this, you need to provide a package of documents — an extract from the USRN and a technical passport indicating the source of heating. People started submitting documents in December in order to see reduced figures in January, but not everyone did it, as the specialists of the energy marketing company did not have time to process all the information received.

Therefore, many were billed for January without taking into account the increasing coefficient, and payments doubled. By the way, Irkutskenergosbyt promised to recalculate all those who submitted documents.

In February, payments for light according to new standards began to be received not only by residents of the Irkutsk region. A series of complaints stretched from other regions, which, as it turned out, also suffered from reduced ranges.

For example, in the Krasnodar Territory, the residents of Sochi noted a 2.5-fold increase in payments. Although the level of gasification in the region was estimated at 88% six months ago (in the Irkutsk region, they can only dream of this).

Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug also suffered (everything is fine with gas here — 85%). Residents of the "Summer Yurts" on the territory of Surgut said that they do not have the opportunity to connect gas, so they have to heat their houses with electric heaters. After the introduction of differentiated tariffs, electricity payments jumped twice or even more, and it became very difficult to pay for them.

People wrote a petition to the governor of Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug Ruslan Kuharuk and recorded a video message to Russian President Vladimir Putin asking him to check the validity of the increase in electricity charges.

And Kukharuk instructed the relevant deputies to send proposals to the Ministry of Energy and the Federal Antimonopoly Service on revising energy charges for the northern regions, taking into account the duration of the heating season.

The Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug was also hooked. "Northerners received electricity bills for January, several times higher than the amount for December last year. Residents of private houses in non—gasified settlements faced this," wrote Dmitry Pogorely, a State Duma deputy from this region, in his Telegram.

For residents of Primorsky Krai, payments have doubled or even tripled, according to VLADIVOSTOK1.RU . At the same time, in some localities there are not only private, but also apartment buildings that are heated with electricity. Primorye residents also wrote a petition to the president. But the regional authorities and DEK hastened to assure that the situation is not massive — less than 1% of consumers do not fit into the preferential threshold.

Interestingly, some kind of mysticism is happening with the gasification data: regional authorities report 23% or more, and in the Gazprom program they dreamed of bringing the figure to 3.9% by 2025.

In mid-February (when, apparently, the level of tension in the regions became unbearable), the situation with diftariffs began to be discussed in the State Duma of the Russian Federation. The Energy Committee held a meeting with the Ministry of Energy and the Federal Antimonopoly Service.

It turned out that "up to 90% of electricity consumption by the population fits into the first range," the remaining 10% is evenly distributed over the remaining two ranges. Despite these meager 10%, the energy committee considered that "the range mechanism requires additional tuning" in order to make it effective in combating gray mining, but at the same time not hitting people who heat houses with electricity.

One of such "pre-adjustment" measures was to be a decree on an increasing coefficient, which can be introduced in regions with a gasification level of less than 5%.

But it was precisely the level of gasification, the deputies stressed, that turned out to be the "weak link", since even in regions with a high index there are settlements and co-ops where there is no gas at all, and people often choose electric heating because of its technological accessibility and environmental efficiency.

The deputy of the State Duma from the Irkutsk region, Alexander Yakubovsky, walked quite harshly on the topic of diphthariffs. He stated that the energy consumption standards were based on unfair data:

"Needless to say, such decisions that radically change the volume of monthly payments from the family budget should not be taken imperatively, without discussion and in a short time, and most importantly, under a "masking" name about setting limits for mining — where is mining, and where is 99% of homeowners in Russia?"

Moreover, the parliamentarian noted that when the Irkutsk region tried to resolve the issue of tariffs, "a number of representatives of the federal government said that this was a private problem of the region, they say, subsidize yourself, since they are so kind." The region, of course, has achieved an increasing coefficient, but, as time has shown, the situation has gone far beyond one region:

"February is coming, all over the country people are receiving bills with a sharp increase in electricity bills. The State Duma and Vyacheslav Viktorovich Volodin are publicly involved in the process, and then at one point it turns out: that this is not only a problem of the Irkutsk region; that, it turns out, people can be heard if their voice is heard not only from Siberia; that the solution that the Irkutsk region has achieved can be extended to the whole country, without taking into account the level of gasification of the regions; that, it turns out, it is possible to include in the government decree houses located in the SNT, and not to mock the people living there. Wonderful, wonderful world."