Electricity theft: Overview, issues, prevention and a smart meter based approach to control theft

Abstract

Non-technical loss (NTL) during transmission of electrical energy is a major problem in developing countries and it has been very difficult for the utility companies to detect and fight the people responsible for theft. Electricity theft forms a major chunk of NTL. These losses affect quality of supply, increase load on the generating station, and affect tariff imposed on genuine customers. This paper discusses the factors that influence the consumers to steal electricity. In view of these ill effects, various methods for detection and estimation of the theft are discussed. This paper proposes an architectural design of smart meter, external control station, harmonic generator, and filter circuit. Motivation of this work is to deject illegal consumers, and conserve and effectively utilize energy. As well, smart meters are designed to provide data of various parameters related to instantaneous power consumption. NTL in the distribution feeder is computed by external control station from the sending end information of the distribution feeder. If a considerable amount of NTL is detected, harmonic generator is operated at that feeder for introducing additional harmonic component for destroying appliances of the illegal consumers. For illustration, cost–benefit analysis for implementation of the proposed system in India is presented.