1284 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON POWER DELIVERY, VOL. 26, NO.

2, APRIL 2011

Improving SVM-Based Nontechnical Loss Detection in Power Utility Using

the Fuzzy Inference System
Jawad Nagi, Keem Siah Yap, Sieh Kiong Tiong, Member, IEEE, Syed Khaleel Ahmed, Member, IEEE, and
Farrukh Nagi

Abstract—This letter extends previous research work in mod-

eling a nontechnical loss (NTL) framework for the detection of
fraud and electricity theft in power distribution utilities. Pre-
vious work was carried out by using a support vector machine
(SVM)-based NTL detection framework resulting in a detection
hitrate of 60%. This letter presents the inclusion of human knowl-
edge and expertise into the SVM-based fraud detection model
(FDM) with the introduction of a fuzzy inference system (FIS), in
the form of fuzzy IF-THEN rules. The FIS acts as a postprocessing
scheme for short-listing customer suspects with higher probabili-
ties of fraud activities. With the implementation of this improved
SVM-FIS computational intelligence FDM, Tenaga Nasional
Berhad Distribution’s detection hitrate has increased from 60%
to 72%, thus proving to be cost effective.
Index Terms—Computational intelligence system, fuzzy logic,
nontechnical loss, pattern classification.

I. INTRODUCTION

ISTRIBUTON losses in power utilities originating from

D electricity theft and other customer malfeasances are
called nontechnical (NTLs). These losses mainly occur due
to meter tampering, meter malfunction, illegal connections,
billing irregularities, and unpaid bills [1].
The problem with NTLs is not only faced by the least developed
countries in the Asian and African regions, but also by developed
countries, such as the U.S. and the U.K. Specifically, high rates
of NTL activities have been reported in the majority of devel-
oping countries in the Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN) group, which includes Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand,
and Vietnam [1]. As an example, in developing countries, such as
Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Lebanon, an average between
20% to 30% of NTLs have been observed [2], [3].
In [2], the authors proposed a fraud detection model (FDM) to
detect NTLs using support vector machines (SVMs) by utilizing
load patterns of customers derived from the customer database.
Based on the feedback from Tenaga Nasional Berhad Distribution
(TNBD) Sdn. Bhd. for onsite customer inspection, the proposed
Manuscript received October 06, 2009; revised March 22, 2010 and June 11,
2010; accepted June 21, 2010. Date of current version March 25, 2011. This
work was supported in part by Tenaga Nasional Berhad Distribution (TNBD)
Sdn. Bhd. and in part by Tenaga Nasional Berhad Research (TNBR) Sdn. Bhd.
under Grant RJO 10061948. Paper no. PESL-00108-2009.
J. Nagi and S. K. Tiong are with the Power Engineering Centre (PEC) and De-
partment of Electronics and Communication Engineering of Universiti Tenaga
Nasional, Kajang 43009, Selangor, Malaysia (e-mail: jawad@uniten.edu.my;
siehkiong@uniten.edu.my).
K. S. Yap and S. K. Ahmed are with the Department of Electronics and Com-
munication Engineering, Universiti Tenaga Nasional, Kajang 43009, Selangor,
Malaysia (e-mail: yapkeem@uniten.edu.my; syedkhaleel@uniten.edu.my).
F. Nagi is with the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Tenaga
Nasional, Kajang 43009, Selangor, Malaysia (e-mail: farrukh@uniten.edu.my).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPWRD.2010.2055670
0885-8977/$26.00 © 2011 IEEE
Fig. 1. Flowchart of the improved data postprocessing NTL framework for im-
plementation and integration of the FIS into the FDM.
FDM in [2] achieved a detection hitrate of 60%. The approach
proposed in this letter extends the research work of [2] by inte-
grating human intelligence and knowledge into the SVM-based
FDM with the introduction of a fuzzy inference system (FIS) [4]
as a postprocessing scheme. The FIS acts as an intelligent de-
cision-making system together with the SVM-based detection
model in [2] to shortlist customer suspects with high probabilities
of fraud activities and abnormalities.
II. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE FIS
The data postprocessing scheme in [2] employs a decision-
making system using structured query language (SQL) to short-
list potential fraud customers from the correlated data. In con-
text to [2, Fig. 6], Fig. 1 in this letter illustrates the flowchart of
the improved data postprocessing NTL framework for the im-
plementation and integration of the FIS into the current SVM-
based FDM in [2].
A. Parameter Selection
In order to select customers with higher probabilities of fraud
from the correlated data in Fig. 1, useful parameters for the cre-
ation of a customer selection rule are determined by inspecting
load profiles of customers confirmed as fraud by TNBD onsite
inspection teams. From the correlated data, ten parameters are
selected to construct a rule for the selection of customers with
NAGI et al.: IMPROVING SVM-BASED NONTECHNICAL LOSS DETECTION IN POWER UTILITY
TABLE I
PARAMETERS SELECTED FOR FORMATION OF THE CUSTOMER SELECTION RULE
TABLE II
FORMATION OF ORDINARY AND FUZZY RULE FOR CUSTOMER SELECTION
high probabilities of fraud and abnormalities, as indicated in
Table I.
B. Formation of the Customer Selection Rule
The parameters selected in Table I are analyzed in order to de-
velop an ordinary rule for the selection of customers with high
probabilities of fraud activities and abnormalities. The customer
selection rule is established by using discriminative features in
order to classify (identify) consumption patterns of good cus-
tomers [2, Fig. 4] against consumption patterns fraud customers
[2, Fig. 3], as shown in Table II. The customer selection rule fil-
ters (removes) customers with low probabilities of fraud activi-
ties from the shortlisted suspects.
C. Transformation of the Ordinary Rule Into Fuzzy Rule
In order to implement fuzzy reasoning, the ordinary rule in
Table II is transformed into a fuzzy IF-THEN rule, using defini-
tions for combining fuzzy sets. For union operations (OR), the
fuzzy set “ ” operation is used and for intersection opera-
tions (AND), the “ ” operation is used.
D. Fuzzy Membership Function Formulation and Tuning
Triangular and trapezoid membership functions (MFs) using
the ten parameter values defined in the ordinary rule in Table II
are used to implement the fuzzy rule in Table II. The values of
the MFs are determined by inspecting load profiles of customers
confirmed as fraud by TNBD onsite inspection teams. The MFs
are fine tuned by using knowledge and expertise from engineers
in TNBD’s NTL Group.
1285
TABLE III
COMPARISON OF THE DETECTION HITRATE
FOR SVM AND SVM-FIS FRAMEWORK
E. Evaluation of the FIS
The FIS [4] is implemented by evaluating the fuzzy rule in
Table II for all customers (FIS testing samples) shortlisted as
fraud by the SVM in [2]. The FIS produces a fuzzified output
value in between 0 to 1 for each testing sample (customer).
Testing samples with a fuzzy output value of greater than 0.5
(default threshold in between 0 to 1) are considered as customers
with higher probabilities of fraud activities and abnormalities.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
Pilot testing results obtained from TNBD Sdn. Bhd. for
onsite customer inspection by using the SVM-based FDM in
[2] and the SVM-FIS FDM are indicated in Table III. The
obtained results indicate that the computational intelligence
scheme of SVM-FIS outperforms the SVM-based FDM in [2]
by contributing a 12% increase in the average detection hitrate.
IV. CONCLUSION
The approach proposed in this letter extends the research
work conducted in [2] by integrating human knowledge and
expertise into the SVM-based FDM with the implementation
of an FIS. The FIS first introduced in [4] can be used as a
decision-making system for various applications. To the best
of our knowledge, the work presented here is the first to use
the FIS for detection of fraud and electricity theft in power
distribution utilities.
In this letter, the FIS acts as a postprocessing scheme to short-
list customer suspects with high probabilities of fraud and ab-
normalities. The FIS emulates the reasoning process that human
experts (TNBD NTL Engineers) undertake in detecting fraud
activities. The higher detection hitrate of the SVM-FIS proves
it to be more cost effective than the FDM in [2]. With the im-
plementation of the SVM-FIS-based FDM, TNBD’s detection
hitrate will increase 12% from 60% to 72%.
REFERENCES
[1] A. H. Nizar and Z. Y. Dong, “Identification and detection of elec-
tricity customer behaviour irregularities,” in Proc. IEEE/Power Eng.
Soc. Power Systems Conf. Expo., Seattle, WA, Mar. 15–18, 2009, pp.
1–10.
[2] J. Nagi, K. S. Yap, S. K. Tiong, S. K. Ahmed, and M. Mohamad, “Non-
technical loss detection for metered customers in power utility using
support vector machines,” IEEE Trans. Power Del., vol. 25, no. 2, pp.
1162–1171, Apr. 2010.
[3] A. H. Nizar, Z. Y. Dong, and Y. Wang, “Power utility nontechnical loss
analysis with extreme learning machine model,” IEEE Trans. Power
Syst., vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 946–955, Aug. 2008.
[4] J.-S. R. Jang, “ANFIS: Adaptive-network-based fuzzy inference
system,” IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern., vol. 23, no. 3, pp. 665–685,
May/Jun. 1993.