A novel approach to detection and prevention of electricity pilferage over power distribution network

Abstract

The pilferage of electricity is a major reason for high aggregate technical and commercial losses. New technologies and methodologies incorporating anti-tampering features have been developed in metering system to arrest pilferage, but innovative means have been devised by the unscrupulous elements of society to counter the same, sometimes in connivance with those who are expected to check such activities. The proposed energy theft prevention scheme is an online approach which performs theft detection and prevention in a real-time scenario without any supply interruption. The aim is accomplished by design and implementation of electricity pilferage prevention system (EPPS) developed to provide a different amplitude of unsuitable supply voltage for random time intervals to illegally connected loads depending on the voltage regulation of power distribution network. In order to maintain uninterrupted supply to genuine consumers, consumer supervision unit (CSU) is provided by the utility. Thus, consumer appliances will operate efficiently as the voltage regulation is improved by preventing hook-line activity. The proposed theft prevention scheme benefits both utility and consumer in terms of increase in revenue and reliability of power supply respectively. The suitability, flexibility in operation and effectiveness of proposed EPPS and CSU based theft prevention scheme is experimentally demonstrated for different types of legal and illegal consumer loads under various voltage regulation scenario by using a microcontroller model STM32L151x6/8/B. In our experiments the electricity theft detects on the basis of users’ data with 99% accuracy. Also the theft prevention in a real-time scenario without any supply interruption and without knowing the exact topology of the power distribution network is operated with 100% accuracy.