“It should be possible to find the fault”

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Anton Herren’s (72) house in the Bernese suburb of Liebefeld couldn’t have been a 1960s Swiss house: two floors with a black gable roof that extends to the light brown façade. Also on the ground floor there is a large window front with direct access to the garden. The house is in good condition even with energetic renovation potential. The owner renovated it 15 years ago: new kitchen, new bathroom, then a new hardwood floor.

Unlike some of his neighbors, Herren never built a swimming pool. Neither did the electric car. Annual power consumption for the last three years was 6,000 kilowatt-hours, four years ago it reached 7,400 kilowatt-hours, and now this: 26,000 kilowatt-hours.

Invoice amount quadrupled

Herren was shocked when he received the annual accounts last November. The 72-year-old had been running a construction business for 46 years. It didn’t take into account the number of kilowatt-hours billed at first, but something horribly wrong was wrong: “Each of the four payments, about 400 francs each, more or less covered the annual bill.”

But now, with the last bill, there was an additional demand of about 5,000 francs. It is said that Herren bought electricity for 6,500 francs instead of 1,600 francs. “It’s pretty clear something can’t be right.”

The high bills have nothing to do with the energy crisis because the rise in electricity prices in the BKW region is not due to the company’s own hydroelectric power plants. But after three registered letters, Herren was not one step away; BKW Energie AG played deaf. That’s why he hired a lawyer. After all, this has stopped reminders for the additional payment allegedly owed for now.

Herren hired an electrician to find hidden currents in the house. But there was nothing. Ever since the absurdly high bill, Herren notes the meter reading every month. Now, six months later, he says, “Consumption is roughly at the same level as in previous years.”

meters?

It is possible that the error is elsewhere, for example in the meter. A few years ago, a scientific study by a Dutch university showed that electronic meters can have large errors under certain technical conditions. It is unclear whether the counter in Herren’s house is therefore haunted.

Theoretically, it could also be electricity theft. Sometimes the seemingly adventurous things happen – for example, when criminals run an illegal cannabis factory undetected, or when electric car owners charge the battery at their neighbor’s outlet.

This is why there are communities where the grid operator calls the police to look for any noticeable power consumption. Electricity theft is defined in Article 142 of the Criminal Code as “unlawful deprivation of energy”, which is threatened with imprisonment of up to three years or a fine.

BKW, on the other hand, does little to find the fault in the present case. A spokesperson states: “Experience has shown that the increase in electricity purchases is related to internal consumers or a change in purchasing behavior.”

However, the quadrupling of electricity consumption can hardly be attributed to the purchase of new household appliances: such electricity is used by everyone who, for example, operates a sauna for six months without interruption.

The result: at Anton Herren’s insistence, a check counter is now installed. BKW takes the view that next autumn it will be possible to determine whether the existing meter measures electricity consumption correctly. The distribution grid operator is uncompromising: “BKW can assume that the metering of electricity intake in the affected property is working correctly.” Only calibrated counters are used.

Or meter readers?

But what if it’s not a counter? Research by the “Observer” shows that last fall in the suburb of Bern there were technical problems reading electricity meters. In Liebefeld, meter data is read by post office employees. The smartphones of responsible employees are equipped with a special application for this purpose.

However, this program installed on the mobile phone was apparently malfunctioning only at the time the reading was taken. The post office in charge wrote to the reading team in an email to the “observer”: “Last week I reported problems with the reading app. It turned out that there was a data blocking issue in the backend, and counters could not be processed normally in some areas with a large amount of data.» And also: “If the data cannot be downloaded, they were probably blocked from last week.”

In fact, the Post meter reader had to visit Anton Herren three times last fall because of these issues. While “Observer” points out technical issues with meter reading to BKW, the energy company sticks to its point of view. “BKW is not aware of any false meter readings in this area.” It is doubtful whether the checkmeter can provide an explanation for the absurdly high electricity consumption. Anton Herren: “It should be possible to find the fault.”

Source :Blick