Distribution Side Load Monitoring, Control and Theft Detection

Load management and electricity theft on the distribution side are one of the major problems of electrical power systems. This paper presents a novel technique used to eradicate load management and electricity theft detection problems by designing a working model named “Distribution Side Load Monitoring, Control and Theft Detection”. This model consists of three modules: Main module, Consumer module and Relay module. A microcontroller ‘ATmega8’ is the main part of these modules. The Proteus Design Suite was used for the simulation and printed circuit board layout. The main module is installed in a substation and has voltage and current sensors that measure the voltage and current of the line that is connected to the consumer through relays. This limits the consumer’s power and detects theft. This module is also connected to a computer through parallel interface. A consumer module is installed in the energy meter. This module measures and monitors load power. A relay module is simply a switching circuit between the main module and consumer module that can turn on or off the consumer supply on main module instructions. The consumer system (consumer module) installed on the electric meter will send its consumption readings to the central server (substation module) for processing and bill computing. The central server (substation module) will also measure the total power being distributed to all consumers. The difference between the two readings must ideally be zero, when no illegal user is attempting to tap power lines assuming the line losses are known. An illegal load in the power line will cause a difference in the distribution and consumption readings. This difference in the two readings warns the power station of the theft status for that power line and accordingly a manual or auto control mechanism is implemented. The effectiveness of this work has been tested on Proteus Design Suite software.