1. Power Theft Defined and Examples

Rick Schmidt

Power System Engineering, Inc. www.powersystem.org

February 21, 2013

Steps to Reducing Power Theft Overview: State of the Industry

TechAdvantage

http://www.techadvantage.org/2013/

© 2013 Power System Engineering, Inc. 2

Rick A. Schmidt Vice President – Utility Automation and Communications

Phone: (608) 268-3502 Email: [email protected]

Power System Engineering, Inc.

1532 W. Broadway Madison, WI 53713

www.powersystem.org About the Presenter: Rick leads the Utility Automation and Communications Department at Power System Engineering. Rick and his staff provide automation and communication consulting to utilities including: Technology Work Plans, strategic communications plans, procurement, design, and project management. Rick will most often work on projects involving communications infrastructure for DSM, SCADA, DA, and AMI. Rick has over 30 years of professional experience and has an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, WI.

mailto:[email protected]

© 2013 Power System Engineering, Inc.

Session Topics 1. Power Theft Defined and Examples 2. Technology to Combat Power Theft 3. Approaches in Developing a Power Theft Program 4. CRN Report on Power Theft Coming Spring/Early

Summer 2013


How Much Power Theft Exists? • No one really knows. We could not find a single study in

the entire industry that conducted an extensive audit using the proper tools with a non-bias sampling method.

• Various written and phone surveys of US utilities provided a range of 1% to 4% of the total potential revenue that was not billed due to power theft.

• A written survey was sent to the co-ops asking how much theft occurs at their utilities – – About 50% of 67 survey responses indicated that about

0.1% of their revenues are lost due to theft – About half of the co-ops have about 10 fraud cases per

year – About 10% have more than 50 cases per year

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Types of Power Theft Type Description

Meter Tampering Slow the meter or disconnect the meter

Meter Bypass Route around the meter and connect directly to the secondary line. Or partially route around the meter but connect some load to the meter.

Employee/Contractor Dishonesty Fraud

Billing fraud, purposefully mis-reading the meter.

Technical Line Loss

System losses caused by an older line, poorly performing transformers, and other causes.

Non-Technical Line Loss

Losses caused by meter bypass, meter tampering, and fraud.

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Power Theft Defined – Meter Tampering

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• Altering the normal operation of the meter, can work for solid state as well. Visible on the outside.

• Slowing the meter with pins or other devices

Photos courtesy of Landis+Gyr


Power Theft Defined – Meter Tampering

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• Insert sugar and salt through a hole in meter. • Sugar attracts bugs, salt kills them.


Power Theft Defined – Meter Bypass • Bypass occurs behind the meter faceplate

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Power Theft Defined: Meter Bypass

A jumpered connection from the LINE side to the LOAD side at the meter socket with a conducting type material (nails, scrap wire, etc.).

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A tapped connection ahead of the meter at the secondary service conductors before they enter the building.

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Power Theft Defined: Meter Bypass: Excavated Diversion

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A tapped connection ahead of the service secondary conductors to a separate load inside the building

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Photo courtesy of dTechs


Meter Bypass: Sophisticated Wiring

Rather sophisticated: The meter box looks like a normal meter socket with no detectable wires, until you remove the cover and expose the jumper wires.

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Photo courtesy of dTechs


Crude Wiring Not all crime is highly organized; some crude approaches still work!

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Meter Bypass Related to Marijuana Grow Operations

• A high percentage of power theft occurs from marijuana

grow operations. • May use metal detecting equipment to locate the

secondary distribution line into the house (often underground).

• Use heavy construction equipment to bore through the concrete foundation of the house, splice directly into the underground secondary line, and install a circuit panel.

• It was reported in Canada that over 90% of the power theft incidences were houses growing marijuana plants.

• From organized and sophisticated to inelegant or crude theft techniques.

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Suburban Homes: Meter Bypass • Sophisticated

underground wiring

• Major grow operations

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Marijuana Grow Operations

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Who Steals?

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Courtesy of Landis+Gyr


Why Do They Steal?

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Courtesy of Landis + Gyr


Session Topics 1. Power Theft Defined and Examples 2. Technology to Combat Power Theft 3. Approaches in Developing a Power Theft Program. 4. CRN Report on Power Theft Coming Spring/Early

Summer 2013


Theft Detection Functionality

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Functionality AMI

AMI via Service

Transformer Metering

MDMS Line Load Analyzers

Detect meter bypass x (When used with

AMI and MDMS)

x

Detect abnormally high line loss

x

Detect tilted meter x x Detect inverted meter x x x Normalize load data x x x Detect a zero reading event x x x x Detect unusual customer behavior (tampering)

x

Detect invalid hardware access to the meter

x


What Does AMI Do To Help? • Outage flags • Reverse energy flow • Unauthorized

configuration change • Meter placed into test

mode • Event log cleared • The meter can be

configured to immediately transmit an exception message

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• Count of the number of invalid optical port access attempts (access attempts with an invalid password)

• Exception messages • Invalid Local Area

Network (LAN) access attempts

• Change of optical port password

• Change of LAN encryption key


What Does MDM Do To Help? • Takes the AMI metering data and proactively evaluates

and assesses the results for patterns of theft: – Trend analysis. – Aggregates meters kWh on a feeder and forecasts

losses from comparing SCADA data. AMI, and other sources.

– Evaluates line loss by time of day and different load periods when integrated with engineering modeling software.

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Transformer Metering • Fault Current Waveforms • Ambient and conductor temperature • Real-time current and ampacity • Momentary outages • Equipment-related disturbances • Load profile • Power factor • Line status and condition • Power quality (sags, swells, harmonics)

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Transformer Meters and Sensors • Sentient: http://www.sentient-energy.com • GridSense Line IQ: http://www.gridsense.com • GridSentry Smart Grid Sensor: http://www.gridsentry.us • Tollgrade Lighthouse: http://www.tollgrade.com

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Some AMI vendors have partnered with these vendors to add AMI as the transport. Some use cellular.

http://www.sentient-energy.com/




http://www.gridsense.com/

http://www.gridsentry.us/

http://www.tollgrade.com/

http://www.tollgrade.com/


Feeder Sensors: Measure the Load Sub-Feeder • Three vendors in this space. • Vendors are relatively new to the

market but have promise. • Sensors can measure voltage and

current on the distribution lines and can determine the kWh running through a segment of line.

• When integrated with AMI and MDM, the software can calculate the delta between metered kWh and transported kWh.

• This determines areas with greatest line loss.

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Sensor Vendors: Awesense Wireless Inc. • Awesense

Wireless Inc. • Vancouver, BC • Website:

www.awesense.com

• Three pilots completed

• Working with a few co-ops now

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• Business model involves installing the sensors in a given area for several days

• Capture the load, then compare it to metering records

• Address the line loss issue, whether technical loss or non-technical

• Then, move sensors to the next area of need


Sensor Vendors: dTechs • dTechs web site: www.dtechsepm.com • Resides in Calgary, AB, and Toronto, ON • Early deployments: Southern Ontario and Alberta Utilities. • The firm’s roots are in law enforcement; its founder worked for a

Canadian Police Service as the Primary Lab Investigator for energy fraud.

• Provides software and hardware. • Hardware is manufactured by Cooper Power Systems. • Created and owns most of the process patents in this sector. • Various communication alternatives, mostly cellular but AMI

partnerships in the future. • Their solution is long-term: sensors can remain in place for 10 to 15

years. 28


dTechs Sensor Architecture

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Feeder Sensors: Measure the Load Sub-Feeder

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Underground or Aerial


Sample Report: dTechs

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Starting a Theft Reduction Program 1. Combine technical line loss and non-technical loss

(theft) into a single program. 2. Assign a department to lead this effort. Assign a project

manager and create a cross-departmental project team. 3. Create a project plan and capital budget to conduct a line

loss reduction program. 4. One of the first key initiatives is to create an appropriate

set of power theft rules to be included in the Member Service Rules and Regulations or Policies document.

5. Work out a plan with local public safety organizations.

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Starting a Theft Reduction Program 6. Create press release for local newspapers, bill inserts that

bring attention to theft and define the laws and consequences. 7. Set up AMI and/or MDM to provide proactive investigation

of possible theft. 8. Determine line loss by substation and by feeder using

existing SCADA, metering, and engineering modeling tools that may already exist. Determine the feeders that appear to have the greatest amount of line loss.

9. Complete sensor line loss technology assessment. 10. Trial some of the new sensor or transformer metering

software and hardware. 11. Identify proactive projects.

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CRN Report on Power Theft

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• Extensive power theft report coming spring or early summer.

• The report describes: – The types of power theft – The amount of theft – How to use new tools to investigate– AMI, MDM,

transformer metering, feeder kWh sensors – Cost/benefit – Techniques to combat power theft – Prosecution of the crime – Case studies

© 2013 Power System Engineering, Inc. 35

Rick Schmidt Power System Engineering, Inc. VP Utility Automation and Communications Direct: 608-268-3502 Mobile: 608-358-5661 Email: [email protected] www.powersystem.org

Questions?

PSE can assist utilities in developing a power theft reduction program

Documents

1. Power Theft Defined and Examples