Design and development of an innovative smart metering system with GUI-based NTL detection platform

Abstract

Smart Grid is gradually adopted by most of the countries. AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) is one of the key enabler technologies which consists of smart meters, communication network and MDMS (Meter Data Management System). The timely information, for example consumption data and event logs are important for detection of NTL (non-technical loss) such as electricity theft and other customer malfeasance. It contributes up to 40% of revenue loss of utility companies in some countries throughout the world. The proposed detection mechanisms include energy balance method, smart meters in AMI, physical detection sensors and the AI (artificial intelligence) methods namely fuzzy logic and SVM (support vector machine). The problematic issue is that those mechanisms are merely implemented separately with dissatisfaction outcomes due to inherent limitations and weaknesses. In this paper, a novel design of smart metering system is developed as GUI-based NTL detection platform. A 3-tier design of detection algorithm is proposed to combine three mechanisms to complement each other for enhanced performance. The triangulation technique facilitates validation of detection result through cross verification from three sources of measurement data. Furthermore, the system also support better flexibility with built-in or external developed AI methods and user-friendly GUI-based platform to monitor and analyse NTL status in real time of power grid for revenue recovery.