Power theft detection in microgrids

Abstract

Theft of electricity amounts to 1.5% GDP, of most of the developing nations like India. Hence there is a great need to detect power thefts in developing nations. In this paper, we have proposed a wireless network based infrastructure for power theft detection which caters to other functional requirements of the microgrid such as renewable energy integration, automatic meter reading etc. Algorithm for power theft detection (PTDA) which is proposed in this paper, works in the distributed intelligent devices of the microgrid infrastructure for power theft detection. The coordinated action of intelligent devices with PTDA in the microgrid infrastructure enables not only the detection of power theft, but the localization of power theft in the micro-grid. PTDA increases the 1) cost of communication 2) energy consumption of intelligent devices 3) packet latency, if any critical data is piggy backed with power theft data in micro-grid. To solve these issues, we have proposed EPTDNA (Efficient Power Theft Data Networking Algorithm) which uses the frequency of power theft detection and average power draw for power theft, for the efficient routing of power theft. The performance analysis and results given in this paper shows how EPTDNA solves the major issues with PTDA.