TechAdvantage. Steps to Reducing Power Theft Overview: State of the Industry. Rick Schmidt Power System Engineering, Inc.

Transcription

1 TechAdvantage Steps to Reducing Power Theft Overview: State of the Industry Rick Schmidt Power System Engineering, Inc. February 21, 2013

2 Rick A. Schmidt Vice President Utility Automation and Communications Phone: (608) Power System Engineering, Inc W. Broadway Madison, WI About the Presenter: Rick leads the Utility Automation and Communications Department at Power System Engineering. Rick and his staff provide automation and communication consulting to utilities including: Technology Work Plans, strategic communications plans, procurement, design, and project management. Rick will most often work on projects involving communications infrastructure for DSM, SCADA, DA, and AMI. Rick has over 30 years of professional experience and has an MBA from Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, WI. 2

3 Session Topics 1. Power Theft Defined and Examples 2. Technology to Combat Power Theft 3. Approaches in Developing a Power Theft Program 4. CRN Report on Power Theft Coming Spring/Early Summer 2013

4 How Much Power Theft Exists? No one really knows. We could not find a single study in the entire industry that conducted an extensive audit using the proper tools with a non-bias sampling method. Various written and phone surveys of US utilities provided a range of 1% to 4% of the total potential revenue that was not billed due to power theft. A written survey was sent to the co-ops asking how much theft occurs at their utilities About 50% of 67 survey responses indicated that about 0.1% of their revenues are lost due to theft About half of the co-ops have about 10 fraud cases per year About 10% have more than 50 cases per year 4

5 Type Meter Tampering Meter Bypass Employee/Contract or Dishonesty Fraud Technical Line Loss Non-Technical Line Loss Types of Power Theft Description Slow the meter or disconnect the meter Route around the meter and connect directly to the secondary line. Or partially route around the meter but connect some load to the meter. Billing fraud, purposefully mis-reading the meter. System losses caused by an older line, poorly performing transformers, and other causes. Losses caused by meter bypass, meter tampering, and fraud. 5

6 Power Theft Defined Meter Tampering Altering the normal operation of the meter, can work for solid state as well. Visible on the outside. Slowing the meter with pins or other devices Photos courtesy of Landis+Gyr 6

7 Power Theft Defined Meter Tampering Insert sugar and salt through a hole in meter. Sugar attracts bugs, salt kills them. 7

8 Power Theft Defined Meter Bypass Bypass occurs behind the meter faceplate 8

9 Power Theft Defined: Meter Bypass A jumpered connection from the LINE side to the LOAD side at the meter socket with a conducting type material (nails, scrap wire, etc.). 9

10 Power Theft Defined: Meter Bypass A tapped connection ahead of the meter at the secondary service conductors before they enter the building. 10

11 Power Theft Defined: Meter Bypass: Excavated Diversion 11

12 Power Theft Defined: Meter Bypass A tapped connection ahead of the service secondary conductors to a separate load inside the building Photo courtesy of dtechs 12

13 Meter Bypass: Sophisticated Wiring Rather sophisticated: The meter box looks like a normal meter socket with no detectable wires, until you remove the cover and expose the jumper wires. Photo courtesy of dtechs 13

14 Crude Wiring Not all crime is highly organized; some crude approaches still work! 14

15 Meter Bypass Related to Marijuana Grow Operations A high percentage of power theft occurs from marijuana grow operations. May use metal detecting equipment to locate the secondary distribution line into the house (often underground). Use heavy construction equipment to bore through the concrete foundation of the house, splice directly into the underground secondary line, and install a circuit panel. It was reported in Canada that over 90% of the power theft incidences were houses growing marijuana plants. From organized and sophisticated to inelegant or crude theft techniques. 15

16 Suburban Homes: Meter Bypass Sophisticated underground wiring Major grow operations 16

17 Marijuana Grow Operations 17

18 Who Steals? Courtesy of Landis+Gyr 18

19 Why Do They Steal? Courtesy of Landis + Gyr 19

20 Session Topics 1. Power Theft Defined and Examples 2. Technology to Combat Power Theft 3. Approaches in Developing a Power Theft Program. 4. CRN Report on Power Theft Coming Spring/Early Summer 2013

21 Functionality Detect meter bypass Detect abnormally high line loss Theft Detection Functionality AMI AMI via Service Transformer Metering x (When used with AMI and MDMS) MDMS Line Load Analyzers Detect tilted meter x x Detect inverted meter x x x Normalize load data x x x Detect a zero reading event x x x x Detect unusual customer behavior (tampering) Detect invalid hardware access to the meter x x x x 21

22 Outage flags Reverse energy flow Unauthorized configuration change Meter placed into test mode Event log cleared The meter can be configured to immediately transmit an exception message What Does AMI Do To Help? Count of the number of invalid optical port access attempts (access attempts with an invalid password) Exception messages Invalid Local Area Network (LAN) access attempts Change of optical port password Change of LAN encryption key 22

23 What Does MDM Do To Help? Takes the AMI metering data and proactively evaluates and assesses the results for patterns of theft: Trend analysis. Aggregates meters kwh on a feeder and forecasts losses from comparing SCADA data. AMI, and other sources. Evaluates line loss by time of day and different load periods when integrated with engineering modeling software. 23

24 Transformer Metering Fault Current Waveforms Ambient and conductor temperature Real-time current and ampacity Momentary outages Equipment-related disturbances Load profile Power factor Line status and condition Power quality (sags, swells, harmonics) 24

25 Transformer Meters and Sensors Sentient: GridSense Line IQ: GridSentry Smart Grid Sensor: Tollgrade Lighthouse: Some AMI vendors have partnered with these vendors to add AMI as the transport. Some use cellular. 25

26 Feeder Sensors: Measure the Load Sub-Feeder Three vendors in this space. Vendors are relatively new to the market but have promise. Sensors can measure voltage and current on the distribution lines and can determine the kwh running through a segment of line. When integrated with AMI and MDM, the software can calculate the delta between metered kwh and transported kwh. This determines areas with greatest line loss. 26

27 Sensor Vendors: Awesense Wireless Inc. Awesense Wireless Inc. Vancouver, BC Website: Three pilots completed Working with a few co-ops now Business model involves installing the sensors in a given area for several days Capture the load, then compare it to metering records Address the line loss issue, whether technical loss or non-technical Then, move sensors to the next area of need 27

28 Sensor Vendors: dtechs dtechs web site: Resides in Calgary, AB, and Toronto, ON Early deployments: Southern Ontario and Alberta Utilities. The firm s roots are in law enforcement; its founder worked for a Canadian Police Service as the Primary Lab Investigator for energy fraud. Provides software and hardware. Hardware is manufactured by Cooper Power Systems. Created and owns most of the process patents in this sector. Various communication alternatives, mostly cellular but AMI partnerships in the future. Their solution is long-term: sensors can remain in place for 10 to 15 years. 28

29 dtechs Sensor Architecture 29

30 Feeder Sensors: Measure the Load Sub-Feeder Underground or Aerial 30

31 Sample Report: dtechs 31

32 Starting a Theft Reduction Program 1. Combine technical line loss and non-technical loss (theft) into a single program. 2. Assign a department to lead this effort. Assign a project manager and create a cross-departmental project team. 3. Create a project plan and capital budget to conduct a line loss reduction program. 4. One of the first key initiatives is to create an appropriate set of power theft rules to be included in the Member Service Rules and Regulations or Policies document. 5. Work out a plan with local public safety organizations. 32

33 Starting a Theft Reduction Program 6. Create press release for local newspapers, bill inserts that bring attention to theft and define the laws and consequences. 7. Set up AMI and/or MDM to provide proactive investigation of possible theft. 8. Determine line loss by substation and by feeder using existing SCADA, metering, and engineering modeling tools that may already exist. Determine the feeders that appear to have the greatest amount of line loss. 9. Complete sensor line loss technology assessment. 10. Trial some of the new sensor or transformer metering software and hardware. 11. Identify proactive projects. 33

34 CRN Report on Power Theft Extensive power theft report coming spring or early summer. The report describes: The types of power theft The amount of theft How to use new tools to investigate AMI, MDM, transformer metering, feeder kwh sensors Cost/benefit Techniques to combat power theft Prosecution of the crime Case studies 34

35 Questions? PSE can assist utilities in developing a power theft reduction program Rick Schmidt Power System Engineering, Inc. VP Utility Automation and Communications Direct: Mobile: schmidtr@powersystem.org 35