Volume 8, Issue 6, June 2023 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology

ISSN No:-2456-2165

Power Theft Location Identification

at Distribution Level
1
Mohammad Abdul Raheem, 2Kamireddy Nikhita, 3Suru Suneetha, 4Pamu Mahesh Babu, 5Koppaka Sai Sundeep
1,2,3,4,5
Student
1,2,3,4,5
Electrical and Electronics Engineering,
University College of Engineering, Narsaraopet, JNTUK, Andhra Pradesh, India

Abstract:- With the increasing technology there has a The main aspect is to provide a efficient tracking
been a rapid increase in usage of power. Due to system where a simple text message is sent to nearby
increasing cost of power charges resulted in power thefts substation through GPS and GSM module. Whenever there
in both rural and urban areas of India. In spite of several is a difference in sending and receiving end currents,
laws and strict penalties by the government, power theft Arduino may activate GPS module and dump the
is still among one of the most reported crimes worldwide. appropriate location into a link. Here GSM module gets
Due to this expensive loss there is an impact on Indian activated and sends the link through a SIM to the nearby
economy as well as energy consumption. Many substation. Here the link open up showing street location of
technologies have been introduced from time to time but power theft which is interfaced with google maps.
have been unable to make a big mark due to their
complicated working and continuous interruption in The second function lets the supplier manual check the
supply. In this document a simple and economical location, whether there is a theft occurring or else there is
solution to this problem has been presented. This scheme any fault at the location. It enables the supplier to charge the
can be assembled and used at both pole site and service only person committing theft in case of theft. It also helps in
line where it provides appropriate location of power theft unwanted supply interruption to the consumers in case of
to the nearby substation and enables for manual any faults.
checking and charge the person committing theft.
Here if any fault occurs then it can also be cleared
I. INTRODUCTION easily without any interruption in supply. In case of theft
once the theft is cleared, a message ‘Energy Thefted?’ is
Remarkable progress in technology has seen a rapid sent to Arduino. This is result sends a text message that
rise in power consumption across the world in the last two consists of power consumed during the theft period. This
decades. In India, the gross electricity consumption per helps the supplier to easily charge the penalty according to
capita stands at around 210.61GW at present and is the power consumed in Watt-hour.
estimated to touch 400GW by the year 2023. In USA, which
has the largest number of industries in the world, the power II. NEED OF THE STUDY
consumption per capita is less when compared to India.With
a rapid increase in technology and power consumption, there The establishment of largescale industries and
has been an increase in power thefts. In the India’s highly improved technology, it has created a serious problems of
populated state Uttar Pradesh consumes around 19,970MW power shortage. The seriousness of this shortage led to huge
per capita at present. amount of power thefts. In India studies have been carried
out at rural as well as urban levels, which resulted in about
Even with improved security system and awareness, 5% of power produced is being thefted per day. Among all
power theft has not yet been suppressed. A simple tripping consumers across India developed areas and agricultural
of supply is impossible to track the exact location of theft sector has recorded high rate of power thefts. The
and person committing the theft, due to which only some knowledge about the location of power theft and amount of
thefts are successfully found. In this document, a simple and power loss occurring is important to improve power supply
economical scheme has been outlined which can be used at efficiency. The power theft location identification helps in
both pole site and service line and provides reasonable aquiring the required information in fast and efficient way.
protection against theft through tracking the theft location
and sending to the nearby substation. III. LITERATURE SURVEY

The technical background of this work lies in the Mufassirin et.al. [2] presented a paper describing a
works done on GSM and GPS based alert and tracking technique for detecting and monitoring electricity theft that
techniques. GSM based caution is used to send the enables violators to be identified from a far. Based on their
appropriate location and GPS tracking by Mohammad Iqbal half hourly power consumption data and location, Advanced
et.al and Mohammad Mufassirin et.al. Metering Infrastructure and Intelligent Algorithms profiles
users. Recurrent Neural Networks are used to find
The basic idea behind this scheme is to keep on irregularities in power usages. By means of an effective two
tracking the power supplied and consumed that will help the way communication between sending end and receiving end,
supplier to keep a track on power consumption at all times Pravin et.al. [9] used smart grid technology to identify
to avoid power thefts. power theft online. Both at the transmission side and load

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Volume 8, Issue 6, June 2023 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
side smart power meters are fitted. Smart meters [10] can GPRS based power cable grounding wire anti-theft
measure power sent and power consumed whenever a monitoring device system efficiently solved the problem of
mismatch occurs above the tolerance level parameters. At power and cable grounding wire box theft. This provided
that time, power theft is detected. The device will raise an prompt follow-up on grounded cable theft events and it
alarm, alerting the appropriate authorities to take the prevented the occurrence of electric field of high voltage
required legal action and prevent power theft. transmission line fault and improved the reliability of power
grid safe operation.
Qing-Hai et.al. [10] discussed recent advances in IoT
technology and the architecture of the power IoT and Balakrishna et.al. [11] suggested a method for
proposed an IoT based status monitoring and early warning implementing a power theft detector kit using IoT and
system for the power distribution network. The digital meter performing the same using GSM for back up protection.
designed newly is based on relatively cheap distributed
components such as microcontroller architecture and current IV. METHODOLOGY
sensors may assess energy consumption and make accurate
decisions utilizing Internet of Things by using WIFI to Readings of the current and voltage drop at the
interact with servers and consumers. transformer side and consumer end are necessary for this
technique. The theft is detected if there is an extra current
Sayyad et.al. [8] suggested a system that automates flow through the line. The control system takes the required
electricity meter reading by implementing IoT technology in steps to find and stop the theft if the excess current flows.
electrical energy meters. This allows consumers to The electricity theft can be located and tracked using a
undertake power optimization by delivering electricity usage mathematical analysis and algorithm.
information on a regular basis via an Android app. A new

A. Mathematical analysis

Fig. 1: Schematic diagram of Distribution line with External tapping.

Considers and depicts a distribution line. Transformer  Under normal conditions:

voltage is referred to as Vs. The current Is will flow through All extra loads have the same value as the source
the circuit once the source and load are linked. An external current.
tapping is contemplated from the distribution transformer at IS = ΣI (4)
a distance of L meters. As more current passes through the ITH = 0 (5)
tapping as a result, power stealing occurs.
 Under theft condition:
Using Fig. 1, the transformer's source current is The sum of all load currents is less than the primary
equivalent to the sum of all currents flowing through the current.
various loads on the load side and current flowing through Is > ΣI (6)
additional tapping. Ith ≠ 0 (7)

IS = [I1 + I2 + I3 + ............. + IN] + ITH (1) B. Flow chart of theft detection

Is = ΣI + Ith (2) The flow chart, which is depicted in Fig. 2, makes
understanding the idea very simple. The readings of voltage
Theft current Ith is derived as: and current levels at the consumer end and the distribution
end are taken into consideration during the initial conditions.
ITH = Is - ΣI (3) If the present flow remains unchanged then no theft is
detected. Otherwise GPS and GSM modules gets activated
by the Arduino Board and sends the tracked location to the
nearby substation.

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Volume 8, Issue 6, June 2023 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
After the alert is created respective officer reaches the is sent to substation after clearing the theft. After receiving
tracked location to check whether there is theft or else any the text message amount of energy thefted is sent. By this
fault is occurring.If there is any theft, a message ‘ENERGY’ supplier can easily charge the person committing theft.

Fig. 2: Flow chart of Power Theft Detection

V. DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION  The Arduino board

The Arduino board is a programmable open source
This part of report has been organized as microcontroller board that can be used to integrate into a
 Implementation of hardware variety of electrical and electronics projects. With the
 B.Implementation of software advancement in technology this board is used to easily
 C.Outcomes and Observation interface with other Arduino boards, Arduino shields and to
control relays, LEDs and motors as an output.
A. Implementation of hardware
Here the system can be broadly divided into three parts: There are many available options, among which , the
 The Arduino board Arduino UNO board has been used here. It supports voltage
 The GSM module of 12V and provides fast and efficient performance.
 The GPS module
 The Current sensors

Fig. 3: Arduino Board

 The GSM modem Due to this different working of GSM network, it has
The GSM modem is generally used for communication been picked for medium of communication. There are
purpose whenever required due to its unique nature of variable options are available, among which, GPRS GSM
network. With the rapid increase in technology of GSM, SIM800L modem has been used here. It supports voltage of
there is always a new advancement in GSM network and it 3V and gives fast response to the supplier.
is available everywhere.

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Volume 8, Issue 6, June 2023 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165

Fig. 4: Interfacing of the GSM SIM900A Modem

 The GPS module There has been developed different types of GPS
The GPS module plays a vital role in power theft modules with respect to the technology advancement,
location tracking. Here the GPS module is interfaced with among which, here we are using NEO 6M GPS module due
Arduino UNO board and provides the location whenever the its fast and accurate outcomes.
current algorithm is not satisfied and Arduino asks for it.

Fig. 5: Interfacing of the GPS Module

 The Current Sensors  Send “THEFT IS STILL ONLINE” MESSAGE to

The Current Sensors are used to detect and convert Assistant Engineer using GSM modem.
current to an easily measurable output voltage, which is  If IS ≤ ΣI
proportional to the current through the measured path.  Send energy calculated to Assistant Engineer.
 END.
There are wide variety of sensors and each sensor is
suitable for a specific current range and environmental C. OUTCOMES AND OBSERVATION
condition. Among these multiple types, we are using hall The system has been tested on several loads and theft
effect current sensors to measure the current at both condition. It showed excellent performance, the GPS
receiving and sending and use the values for comparison in module took an average of 40-90 seconds for tracking the
algorithm.These support current range of 5A and provides location under appropriate conditions of weather. From the
easy measurable outcomes. time of tracking the appropriate location to sending the
google map link, the tracking function took an average of
B. Implementation of software 140 seconds.
The software part covers the code that has to be fed into
the Arduino microcontroller. The code runs in an infinite The functions of sending location link and amount of
loop and its outline is as follows: energy theft worked without any glitches. On an average it
 Measurement of Currents from Current Sensors for took around 50 seconds for the functions completing and
Identifying POWER THEFT. also around 90-140 seconds for the amount of energy thefted
 If IS> Σ I message to reach the nearby substation.
 Read Location from GPS module. The time taken for functioning completely depended
 Send Location to Assistant Engineer using GSM modem. on the speed of GSM network and GPS connectivity. Even
 Start calculation of amount of energy consumed by theft. though the connectivity is universal, the strength of
 Read MESSAGE from GSM MODEM. connectivity differs from one place to another. In case of
 If message = “ENERGY”. problem in network connection it may take as long as 5
 Measurement of Currents from Current Sensors for minutes.
Identifying POWER THEFT.
 If IS> Σ I

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Volume 8, Issue 6, June 2023 International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology
ISSN No:-2456-2165
To make sure the security function, no tripping action of 12V can also be used.To complement the tracking
is undertaken and the alert message is sent to the authorized function a link is used that coordinates with modules and
nearby substation number. This action is to make sure to plot it on Google maps. This provides the suppliers
punish only the person committing theft. Here the amoreeasy way to understand the current location of the
continuous supply of 12V is provided to the Arduino, either power theft.
it may be directly from supply by stepping down or a battery

Fig. 6: Screenshot of Assistant Engineer ‘s mobile showing working.

VI. CONCLUSION College of Engineering Narasaraopet, JNTUK, for all the

support they extended. Without them, this project would
The system that has been developed provides adequate never have been possible.
protection against theft. Here location tracking function is
used for identification of appropriate location of theft, it REFERENCES
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ACKNOWLEDGMENT [4.] Mrs. A. Preethi Vinnarasi M.E 1 , Bhuvanesh P2 ,
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our heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Y. S. Kishore Babu (H.O.D,
Electrical and Electronics Department) for providing us
immense support in utilizing lab resources to perform our
dissertation work. We are grateful to our college, University

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