[Vintage Sounds]

Good luck my friend, it's a noble effort but I'm on a vacation in Andhra Pradesh myself right now and the only solution I see is to call in the Indian Air Force and have them empty their stockpile of air-to-surface missiles on about 75% of the city of Hyderabad, and rebuild everything from scratch. Leave the corrupt human trash in there while everything burns too.

You probably need something like metering in two locations, one from the point of distribution, and one at the point of utilisation. Make sure the meters are accurate and compare the consumption and account for line losses between meters. That might tell you if there's power theft occurring. As for "where"...well...I guess you just have stand around with a sharpened machete and wait till someone comes along trying to tap a line illegally, or wait till it's done and follow where the wire goes.

 

[sravaneee]

thanks for your reply Mr.Vintage Sounds,

I want to know that what are that meters.I mean what does that meters measure? like current, voltage, impedence etc., and if current and voltage are concerned when there is a problem of surges or high voltages then the meters show a wrong reading so what is the possible measurement instrument to be kept at both distribution and utilization end?

and simply my question is if there are any faults in the line other than line losses then they might also show an error or wrong reading in the meters.so how to over come it.

thank you

 

[chicken steve]

Vintage has a point Sravaneee, perhaps Emon Dmon can help?

~CS~

 

[Vintage Sounds]

thanks for your reply Mr.Vintage Sounds,

I want to know that what are that meters.I mean what does that meters measure? like current, voltage, impedence etc., and if current and voltage are concerned when there is a problem of surges or high voltages then the meters show a wrong reading so what is the possible measurement instrument to be kept at both distribution and utilization end?

and simply my question is if there are any faults in the line other than line losses then they might also show an error or wrong reading in the meters.so how to over come it.

thank you

Well I have about 1/1000th of the knowledge some guys on here have, and I especially know very little about power grid engineering. This is probably not even the right forum for you. You are just going to be measuring kW/hr or kVA/hr(better) on each meter. Like any other utility meter. I don't believe those meters care about surges or sags. If your setup detects power loss through a ground fault, or some other leakage, I'd say that's great because a situation like that is probably pretty dire and detecting it "accidentally" would hardly be a bad thing. We both know the grid here needs all the help it can get.

Also, not sure why you want to go with a single phase 230v setup. That's useless. India runs on 230/400v 3-phase with neutral, and that's what you're going to be measuring. Every place I've gone to here has such a service. Measure all three phases and if the reading on the second meter doesn't match the first meter then you are going to know that somewhere in the middle some power is being lost, either through theft or a fault. Both conditions warrant investigation. If you wanted to narrow it down even more maybe you could have a third meter somewhere in the middle.

Check out the page chicken steve posted, they might have something you could adapt.

 

[sravaneee]

Power Theft Detection/Identification

thank you Mr.vintage sounds,

I surely shift to 3-phase system and thanks for your reply

 

[sravaneee]

Power Theft Detection/Identification

thank you Mr.Steve

 

[Shockdoc]

Con Ed in NYC has a new pilot program where they are installing amprobes on the step down xformers in residential networks. They finally realized how easy it is to be robbed. You have a 40-60 or 100 fused disconnect before the meter inside. A easy jumper w/ alligator clamps in the comfort of your basement can buy all the free electricity you want.

 

[JRaef]

kW transducer at point A, kW transducer at point B, power line modem at each end communicating values of each to a central location, i.e. a small PLC or PC. Compare values of A and B, any difference is the amount being siphoned off somewhere in between.

How to detect WHERE it is being tapped off? No easy way that I can think of. A Time Domain Reflectometer (TDR) can tell you distance to the first point of disturbance in a conductor, but not while energized. You would have to de-energize it, THEN check it. So I suppose if you used the transducer to determine that there WAS theft going on, then you can disconnect the power, attach a TDR, and determine the linear distance to the first point of disturbance in the conductor. If that's not the thief, reconnect the TDR there and look for the next one down the line. Repeat as necessary.

Then you have to decide if it's all worth that...

 

[sravaneee]

Power Theft Detection/Identification

Mr.Schokdoc,


sorry I didn't catch your point and if you don't mine please be clear.

thank you