A resident of Angarsk started underground mining, and when power engineers discovered this and offered him to pay for electricity at industrial rates, he refused. Now he owes 4.5 million rubles.

The press service of Irkutskenergo reports that experts have identified an increase in energy consumption at one of the sites in Angarsk from 1 thousand kW to 60 thousand kW per month. After the owner refused to voluntarily pay for energy at an increased tariff, the energy workers went to court. They examined the household and realized that the miner’s household equipment could not possibly consume such an amount of energy. And then inspectors discovered signs of the operation of mining devices, including the characteristic noise of fans and high heat dissipation.

In their lawsuit, the power engineers emphasized that the electricity was not used by the owner of the site for household needs, and therefore should be paid at a commercial tariff, which is 3-4 times higher than the tariff for the population. The court agreed with the arguments of Irkutskenergosbyt. Now the underground miner will have to pay more than 4.5 million rubles for the period from June 2021 to March 2023.

In August, it was reported that underground miners in the Irkutsk region stole electricity worth 350 million rubles.