New Rules for Consumer Services in Electricity

Regulations were made in many areas with the Energy Market Regulatory Authority (EPDK) regulation, which made changes to the electricity market consumer regulation.

With the regulation published in the Official Gazette, the phrase "consumers with an annual consumption of less than 100 thousand kWh" was added to the relevant articles, which refers to "consumers with low electricity consumption" in the definition and other articles of the regulation.

According to the regulation, Energy Markets Operation Inc. will establish a platform that allows free consumers to examine and compare bilateral agreement offers submitted by energy suppliers and to establish bilateral agreements with suppliers.

If suppliers submit an offer to the platform in question, a bilateral agreement can be established upon acceptance of this offer by the relevant consumers.

If the meter cannot be accessed due to a blocking by the consumer, the distribution company may issue a consumption invoice by taking into account the past consumption data of the place of use for the same period, or if not available, the consumption data of similar places of consumption for the same period, provided that this is documented and corrected later.

No fee can be requested from consumers under any name due to the collection of invoices by the authorized supply companies or persons from whom services are purchased.

Suppliers will be obliged to provide consumers with current and past consumption invoices and consumption comparison information with similar consumers on their websites and mobile applications.

Regulations for theft of electricity

Information provided by network/infrastructure institutions such as water, natural gas and internet can be used for the detection and assessment of illegal electricity.

The meter belonging to these users can be replaced with a meter that includes a cutting system that prevents external consumer intervention, or technological methods can be applied to prevent the consumer from connecting to the electricity.

In the distribution regions within the scope of the licenses of high-loss companies determined by the Energy Market Regulatory Authority, if the illegal use is high or if the demand for a cut-off due to debt by the relevant authorized supply company exceeds 50 percent of the total number of consumers, feeder-based energy cuts can be made, provided that the energy supply of regular consumers connected to the distribution facility is ensured.

In calculating the amount of illegal electricity consumption, the average daily working hours will be accepted as 5 hours for residential use, 8 hours for agricultural use, 7 hours for single-shift workers, 14 hours for 2-shift workers, 21 hours for 3-shift workers, 12 hours for consumers whose shift cannot be determined, 10 hours for touristic facilities, fuel stations and hospitals, 12 hours for shopping malls, cold storage and vehicle charging stations, and 8 hours for other consumers.