power theft

How do they steal the power?

Illegal connection or tampering with the meter on a legal connection?

Place a check energy meter on a commonly used transformer. Add all the individual readings of the meters of all the consumers connected to that transformer. Compare it to the reading of the check meter. They must be read on the same day and preferably within the same hour.

If the discrepancy is very high then you will know some consumers are stealing electricity.

If they steal during nighttime only through direct tapping (bypassing the meter) to the distribution line and will remove them during daytime, then you will have a hard time catching them. Night operations will be necessary as what we did.

What we did in our electric utility, for areas where stealing of electricity is rampant, we transferred the consumers' meters from their houses to a high place usually on a rack on a distribution pole. The meters are installed approx. 20 feet above ground level.

What kind of power theft are you asking about?

One officemate rented a house that was adjacent to his landlord's house (separated only by a firewall). My officemate accepted his slightly high electric bills because he didn't know how much electricity he was actually consuming. It was only when he and his family went on vacation out of town for two weeks. When he received his bill for that month, he was surprised to find it unchanged from the previous month. To make a long story short, he eventually found that his landlord had tapped onto his house's electrical system. He got out of there in a hurry and filed a complaint. Landlord settled out of court.

In another, a friend who works as a meter reader, regularly finds houses that seem to consume very little electricity. The houses were big and had one or more air conditioners. A search warrant usually finds that the house has a lot of electrical appliances which should have jacked up their electric bill. A little more searching reveals that their meter has a provision so that it can be "jumped" or bypassed.

Finding it immediately? Difficult if not impossible. A little detective work is usually necessary.

regards,

Vulcan

Usually, seeing something like this is a dead giveaway: