Design and Implementation of a Smart Energy Theft Detection System Based on WSNs Technology

Recently, the use of a smart energy theft detection system has been considered one of the most useful solutions to minimize the electrical energy theft (EETh) problem, which represents one of the major issues of nontechnical losses (NTL) in power systems. This paper aims to design and implement a smart energy theft detection system based on a wireless sensor network (WSN), represented by the Zigbee technology and power sensors, as they are easy to use with low power consumption. The main contribution of the proposed system is the ability to detect the EETh at the distribution line and identify the possible consumer energy meter that may be an illegal consumer, so as to locate the area at which the energy theft may happen wirelessly without depending on telecommunication companies or the internet. In order to check the high accuracy of the proposed system, the obtained results were compared with the standard meter. This work is implemented using simple, cheap components with a higher accuracy, security, and reliability in solving the EETh problem.