New technology to limit power thefts in Agra

For any electricity distribution company, power theft is a serious problem and in states like UP, this alone accounts the maximum revenue loss.

In order to place a firm tab on rising power theft in Agra, the UP power discom, Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd (DVVNL), has decided to adopt a power distribution technology that is expected to stop power theft in Agra as well as the other towns of the state serviced by the company.

Talking to Business Standard, Kirpal Singh, Managing Director, DVVNL said that there were usually three ways of power theft by consumers "� by exceeding the permitted load capacity for the connection, by tampering with the meter and by taking unauthorized connections from the overhead power lines.

He said this year power theft accounted for nearly 80 per cent of the distribution losses of DVVNL but so far, the measures taken by the company to prevent power-theft had failed to yield satisfactory results.

To cut back on these mounting losses due to power theft, he said, the company had decided to introduce an entirely new form of power distribution in Agra that would eliminate the problems of line-tapping and meter tampering by the consumers, besides regulating the load on the power lines.

He said the new High Voltage Distribution System (HVDS) would be initially implemented in Agra from the coming fiscal year, with a selected number of subscribers being connected directly to small 10 KVA and 16 KVA High Voltage transformers though sealed contacts and instead of 220V overhead lines, the electricity poles shall only carry 11,000V electricity that shall feed these transformers.

He said the new power transformers would have metering units attached to both the high voltage end and the subscriber's end, that would help the company to assess the power consumption at a particular point and it would become a lot easier to track down power theft this way, eliminating the possibility of meter tampering by the subscribers.

According to Singh, the company had already floated a tender to purchase 10,000 such transformers initially, though it was estimated that there would be a requirement of more than 60,000 transformers for the complete changeover of the town's electrical system.

He said, in the beginning, only the burned out 63 KVA transformers would be replaced by a cluster of these small transformers while the larger transformers would continue to be used till the company was able to procure sufficient numbers of HVDS transformers.