Energy theft occurs in two ways: thieves will either tap into the network directly or tamper with the meters. The amount of ingenuity that goes into this practice is usually directly related to how much electricity is being consumed. With electromechanical meters, stealing electricity could be as basic as installing a shunt between the incoming and outgoing meter terminals, or interfering with the rotation of the disc, or even the counters. With electronic meters, thieves will go as far as installing radio frequency (RF) devices that interfere with the accuracy of the reading, or they will inject electrostatic charges, or expose them to strong magnetic fields, wiping out the meter's memory.
India is arguably at the forefront of the fight against energy theft, and last year, North Delhi Power Ltd. earned an Edison Award in the international category for its efforts. The company, a subsidiary of Tata Power Company Ltd., was born out of a partnership launched in July 2002 between Tata and the government of Delhi. Arup Ghosh, chief operating officer at North Delhi Power, explains that at the time, the utility's technical and commercial losses were at 54.5 percent. Today, that number has decreased to 18 percent.
North Delhi Power's most notable innovation has been the integration of its geographic information system (GIS) with a number of other applications to manage network planning, operations, commercial and asset management, and customer relationship management with the goal of improving connections, metering, billing and collections. The GIS is also linked with the organization's enterprise resource planning system to plan investment programs aimed at upgrading and extending the distribution network.
South Africa's Eskom, based in Sandton, began developing a more aggressive energy loss management program three years ago. Maboe Maphaka, the company's acting senior manager of energy trading, notes that a combination of outdoor meters -- where the interface sits in the customer's home, but the actual meter is fastened to a pole outside on the street -- and prepaid meters is a step in the right direction. "The customer pays up front and then uses the electricity until it runs out, and then buys another subscription," he explained.
Another way African utilities are addressing theft is through the use of specialized seals. Integrity Control Systems, based in Johannesburg, offers one-time locking security seals to its customers in the eastern, central and southern regions of the continent. Claudia Coetzer, managing director, explained that, unlike generic seals, which are easily obtained and therefore not difficult to tamper with, these seals bear a unique bar code and are constructed to withstand limited resistance to intentional break-ins.
"In our country, with crime being what it is, energy theft often doesn't take a front seat," Coetzer said. "A lot of suppliers feel that instead of taking it as far as prosecution, if they can take a proactive step to deter the tampering with something like a seal, they then have physical proof that someone has indeed tampered."
Technology -- be it low-tech or high-tech -- is only one part of the solution. Industry leaders emphasize that without an adequate social-awareness campaign, any efforts to minimize energy theft will be undermined. "Energy theft, if many cases, is a social ill," Maphaka said. "You cannot deal with it without being involved in the community and changing the way that [people] think about it."
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Intelligent Utility magazine is the new, thought-leading publication on how to successfully deliver information-enabled energy. This article originally appeared in the March/April 2009 issue.