Energy theft detection via integrated distribution state estimation based on AMI and SCADA measurements

Abstract

Energy theft has been a serious and long existing problem facing by many power utilities. The implementation of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) provides power companies with new means for energy theft detection. As fundamental equipment of AMI, smart meters collect interval measurements from customer sites and thus provide system wide visibility for power companies. Leveraging both AMI and SCADA measurements, this paper puts forward an integrated distribution state estimation method for medium-voltage and low-voltage distribution network. Numerical studies show that the proposed approach can achieve a higher accuracy level for estimation. Furthermore, an energy theft detection method is proposed based on "weight-dropped polling" integrated distribution state estimation. Simulations show that it can deliver promising results comparing with conventional state estimation methods.