SYSTEMS, APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR QUANTIFYING AND IDENTIFYING DIVERSION OF ELECTRICAL ENERGY

• US 20130151026A1
• Filed: 11/19/2012
• Published: 06/13/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 12/12/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: MBH Consulting Ltd.
• Original Assignee: MBH Consulting Ltd.
• Inventors: HUGHES, Michael Brent
• Granted Patent: US 9,122,618 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 700/297
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 1/28 Supervision thereof, e.g. detecting power-supply failure by out of limits supervision
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 17/10 Complex mathematical operations function generation by table look-up G06F1/03; evaluation of elementary functions by calculation G06F7/544
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 50/16 Energy services, e.g. dispersed generation or demand or load or energy savings aggregation

Abstract

Systems, apparatus and methods for quantifying and identifying diversion of electrical energy are provided. Bypass and tap diversions may be identified in an electric utility power distribution inventory zone having both bypass and tap diversions. Bypass diversion factors for consumer nodes in an inventory zone are determined by finding a solution to a system of load balance equations having slack variables representing aggregate tap loads for the inventory zone and in which consumer load profile data is scaled by the bypass diversion factors, which solution minimizes an objective function whose value is positively related to the sum of the slack variables representing the aggregate tap loads. Tap loads are correlated with nodes in an inventory zone by solving a first system of power flow equations not having variables representing tap loads, and then solving a second system of power flow equations having variables representing tap loads using an iterative numerical solution technique initialized based on the solution to the first system of power flow equations.

Claims

1. A method for characterizing non-technical losses in an electric utility power distribution inventory zone, the inventory zone comprising a plurality of nodes including at least one metered distribution node and at least two metered consumer nodes, the method comprising:

obtaining inventory zone load profile data;

obtaining consumer load profile data for the consumer nodes; and

determining bypass diversion factors for the consumer nodes and aggregate tap loads for the inventory zone that;

solve a system of load balance equations for the inventory zone having known values corresponding to the inventory zone load profile data and to the consumer load profile data and having slack variables representing the aggregate tap loads, in which the known values corresponding to the consumer load profile data are scaled by the bypass diversion factors; and

minimize an objective function whose value is positively related to the sum of the slack variables representing the aggregate tap loads.

2. The method of claim 1 comprising constraining the variables in the system of load balance equations corresponding to the bypass diversion factors to be greater than a pre-determined threshold value.

3. The method of claim 2 wherein the threshold value is less than 1.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the threshold value is at least 0.98.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein the variables in the system of load balance equations corresponding to the aggregate tap loads are constrained to be at least zero.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein determining the bypass diversion factors and the aggregate tap loads comprises applying a Simplex solution method.

7. The method of claim 1 wherein obtaining inventory zone load profile data and obtaining consumer load profile data comprises obtaining interval data for a plurality of intervals that span a time period including a tap load transition.

8. The method of claim 1 comprising obtaining consumer load profile data for at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone, including the consumer load profile data for the at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone in the load balance equations, and determining a connectivity of the at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone based on the bypass diversion factor for the at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone, wherein a bypass diversion factor of 0 indicates that the at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone is not connected to the inventory zone.

9. The method of claim 1 comprising constraining the variables in the system of load balance equations to exclude values between 1 and about 2.

10. A system for characterizing non-technical losses in an electric utility power distribution inventory zone, the inventory zone comprising a plurality of nodes including at least one metered distribution node and at least two metered consumer nodes, the system comprising:

a data store comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium containing inventory zone load profile data and consumer load profile data for each of the consumer nodes; and

a data processor communicatively coupled to the data store and configured to;

obtain the inventory zone load profile data from the data store;

obtain the consumer load profile data for each of the consumer nodes from the data store;

determine bypass diversion factors for the consumer nodes and aggregate tap loads for the inventory zone that;

solve a system of load balance equations for the inventory zone having known values corresponding to the inventory zone load profile data and to the consumer load profile data and having slack variables representing the aggregate tap loads, in which the known values corresponding to the consumer load profile data are scaled by the bypass diversion factors; and

minimize an objective function whose value is positively related to the sum of the slack variables representing the aggregate tap loads; and

generate a record in a non-transitory medium indicating the determined bypass diversion factors and aggregate tap loads.

11. The system of claim 10 wherein the data processor is configured to constrain the variables in the system of load balance equations corresponding to the bypass diversion factors to be greater than a pre-determined threshold value.

12. The system of claim 11 wherein the threshold value is less than 1.

13. The system of claim 12 wherein the threshold value is at least 0.98.

14. The system of claim 10 wherein the data processor is configured to constrain the variables in the system of load balance equations corresponding to the aggregate tap loads to be at least zero.

15. The system of claim 10 wherein the data processor is configured to determine the bypass diversion factors and the aggregate tap loads by applying a Simplex solution method.

16. The system of claim 10 wherein the data processor is configured to obtain inventory zone load profile data and obtain consumer load profile data by obtaining interval data for a plurality of intervals that span a time period including a tap load transition.

17. The system of claim 10 wherein the data processor is configured to obtain consumer load profile data for at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone, including the consumer load profile data for the at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone in the load balance equations, and determine a connectivity of the at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone based on the bypass diversion factor for the at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone, wherein a bypass diversion factor of 0 indicates that the at least one metered consumer node having unknown connectivity to the inventory zone is unconnected to the inventory zone.

18. The system of claim 10 wherein the data processor is configured to constrain the variables in the system of load balance equations to exclude values between 1 and about 2.