Development of a cost-effective electricity theft detection and prevention system based on IoT technology

Electricity theft is one of the major challenges faced by the power companies. It prevents the power companies from making adequate money from the sale of electricity. This paper presents the development of a cost effective electricity theft detection and prevention system using the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. The Arduino MKR1000 microcontroller board is employed as a bi-function element; to coordinate the activities of the system and to connect the system to a WiFi network and subsequently to the Internet. A Passive Infrared Sensor is employed as the sensory element to detect when the sensitive part of a meter is opened by a human being. A Solid State Relay with zero crossing capability is used to connect the loads to the distribution network. The Thingspeak.com IoT Analytic platform is employed to create a webpage so that the status of the meter can be visualized on the Internet by the power company. The result of this paper is a functional system for electricity theft detection and prevention whose mode of operation is based on IoT concept.