ISSN 2319-8885

Vol.04,Issue.09,
April-2015,
Pages:1651-1655
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Power Theft Identification System in Distribution Lines using Differential

Power Measurement
AMARENDAR SINGH KAHAR1, PILLA NARESH BABU2, ATHI MANIDEEP3, P JAYA RAJ4, VIDYA SAGAR5
Research Scholars, Dept of EEE, Sathya Institute of Tech and Management, Vizianagram, AP, India.

Abstract: Electrical power theft detection system is used to detect an unauthorized tapping on distribution lines.
Implementation area of this system is a distribution network of electrical power supply system. Existing system is not able to
identify the exact location of tapping. This system actually finds out on which electrical line there is a tapping. This is a real time
system. This will provide an additional facility of meter reading with the same technique and in same cost. This will protect
distribution network from power theft done by tapping, meter tampering etc.

Keywords: Power Theft, Location, Meter Tampering.

I. INTRODUCTION Microcontroller: It used to decode the data from the decoder

Science and technology with all its miraculous
advancements has fascinated human life to a great extent that
imagining a world without these innovations is hardly
possible. While technology is on the raising slope, we should
also note the increasing immoral activities. With a technical
view, “Power Theft” is a non-ignorable crime that is highly
prevalent, and at the same time it directly affects the economy
of a nation. This project is designed to find out such power
theft in the normal distribution lines. Even though there are
certain practical problems in implementing this kind of
systems in future there is a scope for development of these
type of systems. This project is using the principle of the
differential protection scheme for the identification of the
power theft. The differential protection scheme consists of
two CT’S connected at both the terminals of the load. If there
is no fault in the load then the secondary currents of both the
cts will be same. Using the same principle one ct is connected
at the starting end of the distributor and the remaining other
ct’s are connected to the different loads which are legal. If
there is no power theft in the line then the vector sum of all
the ct’s which are connected to the load will be equal to the
current in the main ct. if there is a difference then we can
make out that it should either be the power theft or a fault in
the line. This project consists of the following components:
5V DC Generation Unit: This unit will give 5v dc from the
230v ac, which is used as the internal supply voltage in the
circuit.
Measuring Circuit: This section is built with op amps this
will get the data from the entire ct and make the vector sum
of the entire ct. All the mathematical operation is performed
in this section by using op amps.
and send the signals to the LCD. A buzzer is also blown by
the controller to alarm.
LCD: this will display the location of the distribution
transformer from which the signals came. This is just because
for one substation there will be at least 50 distribution
transformers.
A. How the Working Is Shown
As the practical erection of the lines is not convenient for
the presentation of this project, we use two bulb loads for the
presentation purpose. One bulb will be the legal load or the
actual load and the other bulb will be the power theft load. If
the power theft load is switched on then the difference in the
ct secondary current will occur showing the power theft this
had happened. This method is suitable and convenient for the
presentation.
Advantages:
 It will automatic all find the power theft
 A data log can also be maintained which will be very
useful to know what is the time and quantity of power
theft.
 We can even uses the same project for measuring the
fault using differential protection scheme.
Applications:
 Can be used in distribution feeders
 Can be used in industries and complexes where the
power theft load will be there.
Generation, transmission and distribution of electrical
energy involve many operational losses. Whereas, losses
implicated in generation can be technically defined, but
transmission and distribution losses cannot be precisely

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 AMARENDAR SINGH KAHAR, PILLA NARESH BABU, ATHI MANIDEEP, P JAYA RAJ, VIDYA SAGAR
quantified with the sending end information. This illustrates
the involvement of nontechnical parameter in transmission
and distribution of electricity. Overall technical losses occur
naturally and are caused because of power dissipation in
transmission lines, transformers, and other power system
components. Technical losses in T&D are computed with the
information about total load and the total energy bill. While
technology in on the raising slopes, we should also note the
increasing immoral activities. With a technical view, Power
Theft is a non ignorable crime and at the same time it directly
affected the economy of a nation. Electricity theft a social
evil, so it has to be completely eliminated. Power
consumption and losses have to be closely monitored so that
the generated power is utilized in a most efficient manner.

The system prevents the illegal usage of electricity. At this

point of technological development the problem of illegal
usage of electricity can be solved electronically without any Fig.1. block diagram.
human control .The implementation of this system will save
large amount of electricity, and there by electricity will be
available for more number of consumer then earlier, in highly
populated country such as INDIA. Other probable causes of
commercial losses are:
 Non-payment of bills by customers
 Errors in technical losses computation
 Errors in accounting and record keeping that distort
technical information.
 Inaccurate or missing inventories of data on
customers.

B. Objectives
 This system would provide a simple way to detect an
electrical power theft without any human interface.
 It would indicate exact zone and distribution line on
which unauthorized taping is done in real time.
 It would be time saving if distribution company
personnel take reading by this wireless technique.
 It would provide a digital record in case of any
judicial dispute.
 To maximize the profit margin of power utility
company.
Fig.2. Schematic diagram.
C. Factors That Influence Illegal Consumers
There are many factors that encourage people to steal A. Methods of Theft
electricity of which socio-economic factors influence people Methods used to commit theft fall into the Following broad
to a great extent in stealing electricity. A common notion in categories:
many people is that, it is dishonest to steal something from  Connection of supply without a meter Connection of
their neighbor but not from the state or public owned utility supply without a meter following disconnection for
company. In addition, other factors that influence illegal non-payment or by “squatters” occupying empty
consumers are: properties.
 Higher energy prices deject consumers from buying  By passing the meter with a cable. It coveted into the
electricity. . In light of this, rich and highly educated supply side of the metering installation (i.e. the meter
communities also steal electricity to escape from huge terminals, the metering cables, the cut-out or the
utility bills. service cable).
 Growing unemployment rate show severe.  c. Interfering with the meter to slow or stop the disc,
including use of electrical devices which stop the
II. SYSTEM OVERVIEW meter or cause it to reverse (so-called 'black boxes).
System block diagram and schematic diagram as shown in  Interfering with the timing control Equipment used for
bellow Figs.1 and 2. two rate tariffs to obtain a cheaper rate.

International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology Research

Volume.04, IssueNo.09, April-2015, Pages: 1651-1655
 Power Theft Identification System in Distribution Lines using Differential Power Measurement
Methods (c) and (d) usually involve removal of official
(certification) seals and/or company seals. There effect on
the customer’s economic situation.
B. Effects of Electricity Theft
Negative effects of electricity theft are severe and
dangerous. Primarily, electricity theft affects the utility
company and then its customers. In addition, electricity theft
overloads the generation unit. In energy market, utility
companies expect their money back from the customers for
the electricity supplied, most of which is lost by them due to
the NTL (Non technical losses). Electricity theft is a serious
concern for utility companies as they are under threat of
survival because of these incurring economic losses. It is
evident that some utility companies in developing countries
are losing about 10 to 30 percent of their total revenue,
which shows that they could not invest on measures to
reduce the electricity theft. These economic losses affect the
utility company’s interest in development of the devices in
view of improving the quality of supply or for electrification
process.
III. HARDWARE DETAILS
A. Power Supply Section
This section describes how to generate +5V and +12V DC
power supply.
Fig.3. Power supply circuit.
The power supply section is the important one is as shown
in Fig.3. It should deliver constant output regulated power
supply for successful working of the project. A 0-12V/500
mA transformer is used for this purpose. The primary of this
transformer is connected in to main supply through on/off
switch& fuse for protecting from overload and short circuit
protection. The secondary is connected to the diodes to
convert 12V AC to 12V DC voltage. And filtered by the
capacitors, which are further regulated to +5v, by using IC
7805. So to generate this 12v and 5v constant dc we used the
following components:
 full wave bridge rectifier
 step down transformer
 7805 voltage regulator
 1000uf/35v electrolytic capacitor
International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology Research
Volume.04, IssueNo.09, April-2015, Pages: 1651-1655
Fig.4. Block Diagram Of A Regulated Power Supply
System.
B. Step Down Transformer
As we are using the 230v supply voltage and the circuit
needs 12v and 5v dc, we need to use a step down transformer
to step down the voltage to nearly 12v so that is will be very
convenient to convert it to dc and use it is as shown in Fig.4.
The transformer step down the 230 v ac supply to 18 v dc
supply. The 18v is chosen because as the circuit needs pure
dc the v min value of the circuit constructed by choosing the
18v ac supply with the maximum current is approximately
about 6v. So if the transformer steps down the voltage below
this value the v min will be less than the 5v so this will enable
the circuit to go through the conditions below 5v. As a step-
down unit, the transformer converts high-voltage, low-current
power into low-voltage, high-current power. The larger-
gauge wire used in the secondary winding is necessary due to
the increase in current. The primary winding, which doesn’t
have to conduct as much current, may be made of smaller-
gauge wire.
C. Rectifier
“Rectification is the process of converting an alternating
voltage or alternating current into direct voltage or direct
current”. The device used for rectification is called rectifier.
Rectifiers are mainly two types, half wave rectifier and full
wave rectifier. Half wave rectifier is a circuit which rectifies
only one of the halves of the ac cycle. During the half cycles
when P is positive and N is negative, the diode is forward
biased and will conduct. When P is negative and N is
positive, the diode is reverse biased and will not conduct.
Efficiency of the half wave rectifier will be about 40.6%. Full
wave rectifier is a circuit which rectifies both half cycles of
the AC when P of 1st diode is positive; the 1st diode is
forward biased and will conduct. Now the 2nd diode will not
conduct as it is reverse biased. In all the half cycles either of
the two diodes will be conducting. The efficiency of a full
wave rectifier is about 81.2 %, twice the efficiency of a half
wave rectifier.
D. Filter Circuit
The filtered full wave rectifier is created from the FWR by
adding a capacitor across the output.
E. Liquid Crystal Display
LCD stands for Liquid Crystal Display. LCD is finding
wide spread use replacing LEDs (seven segment LEDs or
other multi segment LEDs) because of the following reasons:
 The declining prices of LCDs.
 The ability to display numbers, characters and
graphics. This is in contrast to LEDs, which are limited
to numbers and a few characters.
 Incorporation of a refreshing controller into the LCD,
thereby relieving the CPU of the task of refreshing the
 AMARENDAR SINGH KAHAR, PILLA NARESH BABU, ATHI MANIDEEP, P JAYA RAJ, VIDYA SAGAR
LCD. In contrast, the LED must be refreshed by the  Six Interrupt Sources.
CPU to keep displaying the data.  Programmable Serial UART Channel.
 Ease of programming for characters and graphics.  Low-power Idle and Power-down Modes.

These components are “specialized” for being used with
the microcontrollers, which means that they cannot be
activated by standard IC circuits. They are used for writing
different messages on a miniature LCD is as shown in Fig.5.
A model described here is for its low price and great
possibilities most frequently used in practice. It is based on
the HD44780 microcontroller (Hitachi) and can display
messages in two lines with 16 characters each. It displays all
the alphabets, Greek Etc. In addition, it is possible to display
symbols that user makes up on its own. Automatic shifting
message on display (shift left and right), appearance of the
pointer, backlight etc. are considered as useful characteristics.
IV. SOFTWARE TOOLS
A. Embedded C Programming Language
This course introduces the C programming language and
specifically addresses the issue of embedded programming. It
is assumed that you have worked with some other high level
language before, such as Python, BASIC, FORTRAN or
Pascal. Due to the complexities of embedded systems, we
begin with a typical desktop system and examine the structure
of the language along with basic examples. All C programs
must have at least one function: main ( )
 Foundation of the C program.
 Starting point for a program.
 Lowest level task.
 Typically:
 Contains a few initialization instructions.
 Calls to other functions.

Simplest C program:

Fig.5.LCD.

F. Micro Controllers
Microprocessors and microcontrollers are widely used in
embedded systems products. Microcontroller is a
programmable device. A microcontroller has a CPU in
addition to a fixed amount of RAM, ROM, I/O ports and a
timer embedded all on a single chip. The fixed amount of on-
chip ROM, RAM and number of I/O ports in microcontrollers
makes them ideal for many applications in which cost and
space are critical. The Intel 8052 is Harvard architecture,
single chip microcontroller (µC) which was developed by
Intel in 1980 for use in embedded systems. It was popular in
the 1980s and early 1990s, but today it has largely been
superseded by a vast range of enhanced devices with 8052-
compatible processor cores that are manufactured by more
than 20 independent manufacturers including Atmel, Infineon
Technologies and Maxim Integrated Products. 8052 is an 8-
bit processor, meaning that the CPU can work on only 8 bits
of data at a time. Data larger than 8 bits has to be broken into
8-bit pieces to be processed by the CPU. 8052 is available in
different memory types such as UV-EPROM, Flash and NV-
RAM. The present project is implemented on Keil Uvision. In
order to program the device, proload tool has been used to
burn the program onto the microcontroller. The features, pin
description of the microcontroller and the software tools used
are discussed in the following sections.
Features of AT89S52:
 4K Bytes of Re-programmable Flash Memory.
 RAM is 128 bytes.
 2.7V to 6V Operating Range.
 Fully Static Operation: 0 Hz to 24 MHz
 Two-level Program Memory Lock.
 128 x 8-bit Internal RAM.
 32 Programmable I/O Lines.
 Two 16-bit Timer/Counters.
International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology Research
Volume.04, IssueNo.09, April-2015, Pages: 1651-1655
Embedded systems programs are infinite loops: they will
continue to execute until the microcontroller is turned off.
B. Keil Compiler
Keil compiler is software used where the machine language
code is written and compiled. After compilation, the machine
source code is converted into hex code which is to be dumped
into the microcontroller for further processing. Keil compiler
also supports C language code.
C. Proload
Proload is software which accepts only hex files. Once the
machine code is converted into hex code, that hex code has to
be dumped into the microcontroller and this is done by the
Proload. Proload is a simple programmer which itself
contains a microcontroller in it other than the one which is to
be programmed. This microcontroller has a program in it
written in such a way that it accepts the hex file from the Keil
compiler and dumps this hex file into the microcontroller
which is to be programmed.
V. CONCLUSION
It is found that overloading, due to various reasons
such as power theft, unbalance condition due to loading
of any phase are the prime cause of failure transformer.
Most of them are caused due to low maintenance as many
localities are situated at remote areas so this system will help
to prevent transformers from being damaged or overload
condition. This will help to tackle the problem of
electricity theft and transformer damage, as the failure
rate is very high in INDIA, around 25% per annum, which
is not favorably comparable to international norms of 1-2%.
 Power Theft Identification System in Distribution Lines using Differential Power Measurement
VI. REFERENCES
[1] J. L. Del Monaco, “The role of distributed generation in
the critical electric power infrastructure,” in IEEE-Power
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[2] L.Philipson, “Distributed and dispersed generation:
addressing the spectrum of consumer needs,” in IEEE -Power
Engineering Soc. Summer Meeting, vol. 3, 2000, pp. 1663–
1665.
[3] D. Casadei, G. Grandi, R. K. Jardan, and F. Profumo, “
Control strategy of a power line for household supply,” in
Proc. IEEE Power Electronics Specialist Conf., vol. 2, 1999,
pp. 607–612.
[4] R. K. Jardan, O. Dranga, and D. Bereknyei, “ Standby
power supply using alternative energy through co -phase
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[5] M.Etezadi-Amoli and K. Choma, “Electrical performance
characteristics of a distribution transformer,”in IEEE
Power Engineering Soc.Winter Meeting, vol. 2, 2001, energy
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International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Technology Research

Volume.04, IssueNo.09, April-2015, Pages: 1651-1655