A conceptual design using harmonics to reduce pilfering of electricity

Electricity theft is a major problem in developing countries and it has been very difficult for the utility companies to detect and fight against the people responsible for theft. This paper proposes an architectural design of smart meter, external control station, harmonic generator, and filter circuit, which can detect and chastise the appliances of people responsible for electricity theft. The motivation of this work is to deject the illegal consumers, and conserve and effectively utilize energy. As well, smart meters are designed to provide data of various parameters related to instantaneous power consumption. Dynamic behavior of such meters can be managed and controlled by utility companies. Total loss in the distribution feeder is computed by the external control station from the values of total load consumption and technical losses in the distribution feeder. If considerable amount of non-technical losses are detected at any given feeder, harmonic generator is operated for introducing harmonics into the feeder for destroying the appliances of the illegal consumers. In addition, harmonic analysis of the distribution feeder and consumer appliances due to the presence of harmonics is carried out to estimate the effect of induced harmonics. For illustration, cost-benefit analysis for implementation/maintenance of the proposed system in India is presented.