Power Theft Detection in Low Voltage Distribution Network

Abstract

In a country of 1.33 billion people theft of power is one of the greatest problems this country faces. India’s power companies have 10 billon dollar losses every year. With only about 10 thousand arrests only in Delhi and only 12 hundred convicted under the Electricity Conservation Act, 2003, Indian power industry still stand to be knee deep in debt. This paper provides a solution to combat this problem. We have proposed a reliable method to detect a power theft by hooking and by passing of electric meter in low voltage consumer network. In case of this suggested method the energy meter is places in between the two LC traps. The injected signal has high frequency, low magnitude, and is non-interfering in nature from an external high frequency injection circuit. The LC traps are designed to prevent the injected signal from reaching the load. Also, in case of hooking on the transmission line and/or bypassing of energy meter, the initial value of the PSD coefficient changes. To attain this goal, the power spectral density (PSD) coefficients are compared at different required points on the circuit.