Using regression analysis to identify patterns of non-technical losses on power utilities

Abstract

A non-technical loss (NTL) is defined as any consumed energy or service which is not billed because of measurement equipment failure or ill-intentioned and fraudulent manipulation of said equipment. This paper describes new advances that we have developed for Midas project. This project is being developed in the Electronic Technology Department of the University of Seville and its aim is to detect non-technical losses in the database of the Endesa Company. The main symptom of a NTL in a customer is an important drop in his billed energy. Thus, a main task for us is to detect customers with anomalous drops in their consumed energy. Concretely, in the paper we present two new algorithms based on a regression analysis in order to detect two types of patterns of decreasing consumption typical in customers with NTLs. © 2010 Springer-Verlag.