Power Theft Detection

POWER THEFT
DETECTION

Presented By : Aravind
Shaji
Roll N0 : 03
Reg No : 13035127
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INTRODUCTION
India, the largest democracy with an
estimated population of about 1.04
billion, is on a road to rapid growth in
economy.
Energy, particularly electricity, is a
key input for accelerating economic
growth.
The theft of electricity is a criminal
offence and power utilities are losing
billions of rupees in this account. 
The following sections will describe the
proposed detection and control system

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THEFT OCCURS WHEN:
An illegal consumer(not a registered customer) steals

directly from the distribution lines or from another legal
customer.
A

legal customer(registered customer) steals either
bypassing the meter (connecting around the meter to a live
cable on the company side of the meter) or tampering with the
meter to make it read less or no consumption.

There

is a collusion between the customer and a
company employee to reduce the amount paid to the
company (with lower side payments to the employee in
return).
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POWER THEFT
METHODS
Meters:
•
•
•

Tampering with meters and seals
By-passing the meters
Damaging or removing meters

Wires/ Cables:
•

Illegal tapping to bare wires or underground cables

Transformers:
•

Illegal terminal taps of overhead lines on the low side of the transformer

Billing irregularities made by meter readers.
Unpaid bills by individuals, government institutions and “untouchable”

VIPs.
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FEW OTHER WAYS OF POWER THEFT
Use of single phase supply from three phase supply.
Disconnected neutral from both the ends.
Used earth/separate neutral for return circuit.
Connecting phase voltage to neutral of used single

phase supply. Potential difference w.r.t. neutral of
used single phase supply is zero. Hence power product
of voltage and current, will be zero.
Isolating neutral from both ends.
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HOW CAN ELECTRICITY THEFT BE REDUCED
NON TECHNICAL
SOLUTIONS

 Financial rewards:
Utility companies
encourage
consumers
to
report
electricity theft
‡
 Periodic checks:
Electricity theft frequently takes place after service has
been disconnected. Some utility companies periodically
check disconnected meters if the customer has
not contacted them to reconnect service.
 Enforcement of law:
Fines should be imposed by the government for stealing
electricity.

TECHNICAL SOLUTIONS
Electronic tamper detection meter
Pre payment meters
Plastic meter encasements
Anti theft cable
Using GSM
Using PLCs
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Plastic Meter
Encasements
Hard plastic encasements are
a type of a meter seal. These
transparent plastic covers
serve as a warning and
therefore reduce electricity
theft.

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Pre-Payment Meters
 Credit added to the meter
on a keypad.
 Credit is purchased on a
rechargeable token or a
card and entered into the
meter with disconnection
ability
 It help in the reduction of
non paid bills and meter
reading iregularities
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Electronic Tamper Detection
Meters
 High performance Electronic Tamper

Detection Meter reference design that integrates an
ultra low-power tilt sensor used for electronic tamper
detection.

Automatic detection of :
Meter tamper
Meter Bypass
Meter disconnection

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Programmable Logic Controller(PLC)
 PLC Presents an interesting and economical solution

for automatic meter reading (AMR).
 If an AMR system via PLC is set in a power delivery
system, a detection system for illegal electricity
usage may be easily added in the existing PLC
network.
 In the detection system, the second digitally energy
meter chip is used and the value of energy is stored.
The recorded energy is compared with the value at
the main kilowatt-hour meter.
 In the case of difference between two recorded
energy data, in error signal is generated and
transmitted via PLC network.
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Programming of PLC
 Early PLC’s were

programmed by
using specific
purpose programming
terminals.
Recently PLC’s are
programmed
using application
software's on personal
computers.

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INSTALLTION OF PLC

Power meters with PLC modules will be installed near the top

of the power polls.

Meters installed in high places will send data of the used

amount to each household through power lines.

Homeowners can then check the amount used on the displays

installed in each house.

This means that the measurement function and the display

function of the meters will be separated.

Power theft is prevented by installing HD-PLC-mounted power

meters on a high position on power polls, while the amount of
power used in each household can still be checked.
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Modern PLC’s

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DEFINITION ON AMR
AMR(AUTOMATIC METER READING) automates the

process of measurement through digital
communication techniques.

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Automatic meter reading, or AMR, is the

technology of automatically collecting
consumption, diagnostic, and status data
from  energy metering devices or water meter
(gas, electric) and transferring that data to a
central database for billing, troubleshooting, and
analyzing.
This technology mainly saves utility providers the
expense of periodic trips to each physical location
to read a meter.
Billing can be based on near real-time
consumption rather than on estimates based on
past or predicted consumption.
AMR technologies include handheld, mobile and
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network technologies based on telephony

FUNCTONS OF AMR
SYSTEM
 Every user has two PLC modems; one is for AMR

and the other is used to send the data from
second energy meter chip to host PLC modem.
 An energy meter must be connected in the
connection box between a home line and main
power lines.
 The host PLC unit must be placed in the
distribution transformer and the configuration of
the addressing format of PLC signaling must be
designed carefully.
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GSM BASED AUTOMATIC METER
READING

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GSM MODEM

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CONCLUSION
By using techniques above the crime of

stealing power may be brought to an end and
thereby a new bloom may be expected in the
economy of ourmotherland and also there will
be less scarcity for power utilisation

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