A novel detector to detect colluded non-technical loss frauds in smart grid

Abstract

A Non-Technical Loss (NTL) fraud occurs when a fraudster tampers with a smart meter so that the meter registers less electricity consumption than the actual consumed amount, and therefore the utility becomes the victim who suffers the corresponding economic loss. In the literature, many detection schemes have been proposed to detect NTL frauds. However, some NTL frauds are far more complicated than what the existing schemes expect. We recently discovered a new potential type of frauds, a variant of NTL frauds, called Colluded Non-Technical Loss (CNTL) frauds in the Smart Grid. In a CNTL fraud, multiple fraudsters can co-exist or collaborate to commit the fraud. Existing detection schemes cannot detect CNTL frauds since these methods do not consider the co-existing or collaborating fraudsters, and therefore cannot distinguish one from many fraudsters. In this paper, we propose a CNTL fraud detector to detect CNTL frauds. The proposed method can quickly detect a tampered meter based on recursive least squares. After identifying the tampered meter, the proposed scheme can detect different fraudsters using mathematical models. Our experiments show that our method is effective in detecting CNTL frauds.

Detection of Non-Technical Losses in Power Utilities—A Comprehensive Systematic Review

“…The ratio of fraudster customers identified by RTUs to the actual number of fraudster customers. [53,90] Minimum detected deviation Described as the smallest deviation identified from the typical profile.…”

“…In addition to that, the difficult task in these methods is the precise calculation of technical losses in the network. The authors in [90] and [57] used this concept for NTL detection. The different parameters related to meter's behavior are computed through various methods.…”

Difference-Comparison-based Malicious Meter Inspection in Neighborhood Area Networks in Smart Grid

“…The papers [54,55] propose a fast NFD (FNFD) method based on recursive least square to model an adversary's behaviors. The papers [56,57] study colluded NTL (CNTL) frauds in which multiple fraudsters can co-exist or collaborate to commit a fraud, and propose colluded NFD (CNFD) address the CNTL fraud problem. Another related method is called binary-coded groupingbased inspection (BCGI) [58], which divides meters into groups with binary codings to help to identify abnormal meters.…”

Towards Distributed Measurements of Electric Fields Using Optical Fibers: Proposal and Proof-Of-Concept Experiment

“…The development of this empirical distributed solution would be particularly well-suited to electricity delivery industries, envisioning the continuous monitoring of technical losses (TLs) along the network. Those can occur during the generation, transmission and distribution of electrical power, and often include power dissipation in resistive components along the grid, ground faults, or voltage leaks due to improper isolation [ 12 ]. An early TL detection by self-diagnosable grids could help to prevent extended deterioration of the electric systems, allowing for fast restoration, increased efficiency and safety, long-term production yields, and huge cost-savings in maintenance and inspection [ 13 , 14 ].…”

“…An early TL detection by self-diagnosable grids could help to prevent extended deterioration of the electric systems, allowing for fast restoration, increased efficiency and safety, long-term production yields, and huge cost-savings in maintenance and inspection [ 13 , 14 ]. Furthermore, electricity providing industries could benefit greatly from the implementation of this solution, given the increasing problem of non-technical losses (NTL) faced by all electricity utilities (e.g., electricity or copper cable theft) [ 12 , 15 ]. Actively responsive grids could help to instantly detect and localize artificial irregularities occurring at any position in the network, preventing NTL along the system and losses of huge amounts of money by utilities [ 16 , 17 ].…”