Electricity theft detection by sources of threats for smart city planning

Abstract

Smart city adoption and deployment has taken the centre stage worldwide with its realisation clearly hinged on energy efficiency, but its planning is threatened by the vulnerability of smart grids (SGs). Adversaries launch attacks with various motives, but the rampaging electricity theft menace is causing major concerns to SGs deployments and consequently, energy efficiency. Smart electricity meters deployments via the advanced metering infrastructure present promising solutions and even greater potential as it provides adequate data for analytical inferences for achieving proactive measures against various cyberattacks. This study suggests the sources of threats as the first step of such proactive measures of curbing electricity thefts. It provides a framework for monitoring, identifying and curbing the threats based on factors indicative of electricity thefts in a smart utility network. The proposed framework basically focuses on these symptoms of the identified threats indicative of possible electricity theft occurrence to decide on preventing thefts. This study gives a useful background to smart city planners in realising a more reliable, robust and secured energy management scheme required for a sustainable city.

Detection of Non-Technical Losses in Power Utilities—A Comprehensive Systematic Review

“…Network-based methods rely on the information attained from the smart meters and calculation of different physical parameters of the electrical network for efficiently identifying the NTL activity [11,111]. Several studies have used the power flow process to calculate the total volume of NTL activity.…”

IoT Based Non–Technical Loss Detection and Mitigation System for Power Distribution Networks

“…The difference between TL and NTL can be seen from the fact that while TL can be calculated and estimated but cannot be eliminated from the system, NTL can be eliminated or reduced to a barest minimum. TL can be reduced by use of standard quality materials and obeying stipulated regulations [9], [11].…”

“…The need to adequately and automatically reduce non-technical loss is the main purpose of this project work. Detection of electricity theft and NTL involves a very difficult process and requires continuous monitoring to reduce fraud [9]. Over the years, several methods and techniques have been developed to reduce NTL on power systems; these methods will be discussed further in the literature review.…”

Online electricity theft detection and prevention scheme for smart cities

“…An approach to the framework for identifying various sources of threats to advance metering infrastructure (AMI) with the sources and symptoms of the threats explored in [13]. However, more analysis is required to confirm theft cases.…”