Under the new payment system AO MOSENERGO will send each customer an itemized bill. The average payment will be calculated based on the average consumption in previous years. Privileges for certain customer categories will be already taken into account. To check the accuracy of charged amounts, the company will verify the meter readings each quarter. In this way, the company will be able to independently check the amount of consumed power. As of now this figure is calculated based only on the data submitted by consumers. According to the statistical data, only 35% percent of Muscovites pay for electricity on a monthly basis. As a result each year the company fails to receive 250 million rubles, this according to Vladimir Borisov, deputy head of Energosbyt, sales division of AO MOSENERGO, at a media seminar held on August 15, on the new system of electricity payments in Moscow.

The new payment system for consumers will be implemented by the Center for Servicing Energy Sales (CSES). Starting from July 1, the new payment system has been introduced in the Central District of Moscow. The bills have been sent to 70,000 consumers. In September–December the new payment system will be applied to all Muscovites—3,400,000 consumers of AO MOSENERGO energy. It is possible that from October this system will be implemented in Moscow region as well.

At Thursday’s seminar the speakers explained in detail the new methods for calculating payments for consumed energy, as well as the advantages of this method, compared to the old one (used in previous decades). Igor Kriventsov, CSES general director, has said that switching to the new payment system will "first and foremost make payments convenient for the customers themselves," as all work involving the calculation of amounts and filling in bills will be done by the company.

"Those who doubt the accuracy of their bill will be able to independently check the meter readings and our calculations. However, we guarantee that customers will soon see that AO MOSENERGO is not going to overcharge them. It would only make more work as we would then have to return the [overpayment] difference," Mr. Kriventsov said. In case the consumer does not agree with our calculations, the company will be responsible for recalculating the amount based on the customer's request, which can be submitted personally or by mail to one of our servicing centres. A special multichannel information service will start operations starting on August 19. Muscovites will be able to ask questions and submit requests.

"At this early stage of the operations, it is important for us to minimise queues and disputes," the CSES general director said. "We are also well aware that people need time to sort out the situation and understand the advantages and conveniences of the new method, which has been successfully used abroad."