Microcontroller based System to Detect Power Theft by using CT and PT

The energy cost has been constantly increasing to produce the quality power. The conservation and efficient management of energy has become very important to keep the industry productive, profitable and competitive. Paper deals with identification of online theft that prevails on distribution line. Here we check difference in total input power supplied and sum of individual power supplied to the customers to identify theft online. Here used microcontroller based system to detect power theft. Making the use of current transformer and a potential transformer we can measure power at both the points and taking the difference between the two we can say that theft has occurred or not. Also If any customer will use excess load than that of sanction load we can give warning message. Utility companies in India estimate that electricity theft costs them over a billion US dollars in annual revenues. The purpose of this work is to provide an algorithm for the design of electricity theft monitoring system which allows violators to be detected at a remote location. It begins with the analysis of losses in electrical power systems. The bulk of these losses are caused by electricity theft, rather than other possibilities such as poor maintenance and calculation and accounting mistakes, though some power systems may suffer from both. Other aspects discussed include the various forms of theft practices, methodology for detection of theft, generating the theft case algorithm using the backtracking algorithm method and communicating these data from the consumer premises to the substation using the existing power lines. Appropriate conclusions and recommendations were given from the information gathered.