Development of effective shielding against electricity meters tampering with strong magnetic fields

I. Diahovchenko, R.G. Olsen, V. Zalotov, A. Chuprun, B. Dolník, O. Boiko

Electric Power Systems Research Vol. 213, pp. 1 - 18

Summary:

To maintain high efficiency, electric utility providers aim to minimize energy losses between points of generation and customer distribution. A significant share of these losses is nontechnical, such as losses from energy theft. One prevalent method of energy theft involves tampering with electricity meters by means of strong magnetic fields. In this study, different shielding structures were developed to protect the electric energy meters’ pulse current transformers from external magnetic fields, with respect to the allocation and orientation of these sensitive elements. Several shielding geometries, solid and multilayer shields were modeled and compared in terms of their efficiency for flux shunting. Based on the obtained results, recommendations for effective shielding against tampering were driven.

Keywords: Current transformer; Electricity non-technical losses; Magnetic field; Electricity meter; Permanent magnet; Pulse transformer; Shielding; Flux shunting

JCR Impact Factor and WoS quartile: 3,900 - Q2 (2022)

DOI reference: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsr.2022.108722

Published on paper: December 2022.

Published on-line: August 2022.

Citation:
I. Diahovchenko, R.G. Olsen, V. Zalotov, A. Chuprun, B. Dolník, O. Boiko, Development of effective shielding against electricity meters tampering with strong magnetic fields. Electric Power Systems Research. Vol. 213, pp. 1 - 18, December 2022. [Online: August 2022]