Skip to main content
Log in

A new clustering-based semi-supervised method to restrict the users from anomalous electricity consumption: supporting urbanization

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Electrical Engineering Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

One of the crucial issues for power grids in strengthening the urbanization around the world is imbalance between supply and demand, which leads the users to consume electricity in an anomalous manner without paying for it. Electricity theft plays a pivotal role in cutting down on the electricity bills. The existing data-oriented approaches for electricity theft detection (ETD) in the smart cities have limited ability to handle noisy high-dimensional data and features’ associations. These limitations raise the misclassification rate, which makes some of the approaches unacceptable for electric utilities. A new twofold end-to-end methodology is proposed for ETD. In the first fold, it groups the similar electricity consumption (EC) cases through grey wolf optimization (GWO)-based clustering mechanism; clustering by fast search and find of density peaks (CFSFDP), we named it GC. In the second fold, a new relational stacked denoising autoencoder (RSDAE)-based semi-supervised generative adversarial network (GAN), termed as RGAN, is used for ETD. The combined methodology is named as GC-RGAN. In the methodology, RSDAE acts as both feature extraction technique and generator sub-model of the proposed RGAN. The proposed methodology utilizes the advantages of clustering, adversarial learning and semi-supervised EC data. Besides, to validate the effectiveness of the proposed solution, extensive simulations are performed using smart meter data. Simulation results validate the excellent ETD performance of the proposed GC-RGAN against existing ETD schemes, such as random forest and semi-supervised support vector machine. In comparison, GC-RGAN covers the ETD score of 98% that shows its suitability for real-world scenarios. The proposed solution has extraordinary performance for ETD as compared to traditional solutions, which shows its superiority and usefulness for real-world applications.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Fig. 16
Fig. 17
Fig. 18
Fig. 19

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Meira JA, Glauner P, State R, Valtchev P, Dolberg L, Bettinger F et al (2017) Distilling provider-independent data for general detection of non-technical losses. In: 2017 IEEE power and energy conference at Illinois (PECI), pp 1–5

  2. Xia Z, Tan J, Ke G, Jia WJ (2021) Detection resource allocation scheme for two-layer cooperative IDSs in smart grids. J Parallel Distrib Comput 147:236–247

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Li X, Fan W, Kumari S, Lili X, Sangaiah AK, Choo K-KR (2019) A provably secure and anonymous message authentication scheme for smart grids. J Parallel Distrib Comput 132:242–249

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Jokar P, Arianpoo N, Leung VCM (2016) Electricity theft detection in AMI using customers’ consumption patterns. IEEE Trans Smart Grid 7:216–226

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Ghori KM, Abbasi RA, Awais M, Imran M, Ullah A, Szathmary L (2020) Performance analysis of different types of machine learning classifiers for non-technical loss detection. IEEE Access 8:16033–16048

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Aslam Z, Ahmed F, Almorgen A, Shafiq M, Zuair M, Javaid N (2020) An attention guided semi-supervised learning mechanism to detect electricity frauds in the distribution systems. IEEE Access 8:221767–221782

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Smart meters help reduce electricity theft, increase safety, BC Hydro, Inc., Vancouver, BC, Canada, Mar. 2011. Accessed: Feb. (2019). [Online]. https://www.bchydro.com/news/conservation/2011/smart_meters_energy_theft.html

  8. Khan JR, Siddiqui FA, Khan RR (2016) Survey: NTL detection in electricity energy supply. Int J Comput Appl 155:18–23

    Google Scholar 

  9. Antmann P (2009) Reducing technical and non-technical losses in the power sector. In: Background paper for the WBG energy strategy. Technical Report; The World Bank: Washington, DC, USA. [Online]. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/20786

  10. Yao D, Wen M, Liang X, Fu Z, Zhang K, Yang B (2020) Energy theft detection with energy privacy preservation in the smart grid. IEEE Internet Things J 6:7659–7669

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Nabil M, Ismail M, Mahmoud MM, Alasmary W, Serpedin E (2019) PPETD: privacy-preserving electricity theft detection scheme with load monitoring and billing for AMI networks. IEEE Access 7:96334–96348

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Samuel O, Javaid N, Khalid A, Khan WZ, Aalsalem MY, Afzal MK et al (2020) Towards real-time energy management of multi-microgrid using a deep convolution neural network and cooperative game approach. IEEE Access 8:161377–161395

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Mujeeb S, Javaid N (2019) ESAENARX and DE-RELM: novel schemes for big data predictive analytics of electricity load and price. Sustain Cities Soc 51:101642. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2019.101642

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Kozik R, Choraś M, Ficco M, Palmieri F (2018) A scalable distributed machine learning approach for attack detection in edge computing environments. J Parallel Distrib Comput 119:18–26

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Leite JB, Mantovani JRS (2018) Detecting and locating non-technical losses in modern distribution networks. IEEE Trans Smart Grid 9:1023–1032

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Louw Q, Bokoro P (2019) An Alternative technique for the detection and mitigation of electricity theft in South Africa. SAIEE Afr Res J 110:209–216

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. McLaughlin S, Holbert B, Fawaz A, Berthier R, Zonouz S (2013) A multi-sensor energy theft detection framework for advanced metering infrastructures. IEEE J Sel Areas Commun 31:1319–1330

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Santilio FP, Monteiro RV, de Vasconcellos AB, Cortez NE, Quadros R, Finazzi AP (2020) Non-technical losses detection: an innovative no-neutral detector device for tampered meters. J Control Autom Electr Syst 31:521–533

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Amin S, Schwartz GA, Cardenas AA, Sastry SS (2015) Game-theoretic models of electricity theft detection in smart utility networks: providing new capabilities with advanced metering infrastructure. IEEE Control Syst Mag 35:66–81

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  20. Lin C-H, Chen S-J, Kuo C-L, Chen J-L (2014) Non-cooperative game model applied to an advanced metering infrastructure for non-technical loss screening in micro-distribution systems. IEEE Trans Smart Grid 5:2468–2469

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Heynen AP, Lant PA, Smart S, Sridharan S, Greig C (2019) Off-grid opportunities and threats in the wake of India’s electrification push. Energy Sustain Soc 9(1):1–10

    Google Scholar 

  22. Zhu X, Zhu J, Bencheng W, Liu M, Wang G, Zhu Z, Gan Z, Zhang J, Meng C (2021) Energy planning for an eco-city based on a distributed energy network. Energy Sustain Soc 11:1–17

    Google Scholar 

  23. Klemm C, Wiese F (2022) Indicators for the optimization of sustainable urban energy systems based on energy system modeling. Energy Sustain Soc 12(1):3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Zheng Z, Yang Y, Niu X, Dai H-N, Zhou Y (2018) Wide and deep convolutional neural networks for electricity-theft detection to secure smart grids. IEEE Trans Ind Inf 14:1606–1615

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Hasan M, Toma RN, Nahid A-A, Islam M, Kim J-M (2019) Electricity theft detection in smart grid systems: a CNN-LSTM based approach. Energies 12:3310. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12173310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Li S, Han Y, Yao X, Yingchen S, Wang J, Zhao Q (2019) Electricity theft detection in power grids with deep learning and random forests. J Electr Comput Eng. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/4136874

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Buzau M-M, Tejedor-Aguilera J, Cruz-Romero P, Gomez-Exposito A (2020) Hybrid deep neural networks for detection of non-technical losses in electricity smart meters. IEEE Trans Power Syst 35:1254–1263

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Gul H, Javaid N, Ullah I, Qamar AM, Afzal MK, Joshi GP (2020) Detection of non-technical losses using SOSTLink and bidirectional gated recurrent unit to secure smart meters. Appl Sci 10:3151. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10093151

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Buzau MM, Tejedor-Aguilera J, Cruz-Romero P, Gomez-Exposito A (2019) Detection of non-technical losses using smart meter data and supervised learning. IEEE Trans Smart Grid 10:2661–2670

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Punmiya R, Choe S (2019) Energy theft detection using gradient boosting theft detector with feature engineering-based preprocessing. IEEE Trans Smart Grid 10:2326–2329

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Adil M, Javaid N, Qasim U, Ullah I, Shafiq M, Choi J-G (2020) LSTM and bat-based RUSBoost approach for electricity theft detection. Appl Sci 10:4378. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10124378

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Avila NF, Figueroa G, Chu C (2018) NTL detection in electric distribution systems using the maximal overlap discrete wavelet-packet transform and random undersampling boosting. IEEE Trans Power Syst 33:7171–7180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Saeed MS, Mustafa MW, Sheikh UU, Jumani TA, Mirjat NH (2019) Ensemble bagged tree based classification for reducing non-technical losses in Multan electric power company of Pakistan. Electronics 8:860. https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics8080860

    Article  Google Scholar 

  34. Khan ZA, Adil M, Javaid N, Saqib MN, Shafiq M, Choi J-G (2020) Electricity theft detection using supervised learning techniques on smart meter data. Sustainability 12:8023. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12198023

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Zheng K, Chen Q, Wang Y, Kang C, Xia Q (2019) A novel combined data-driven approach for electricity theft detection. IEEE Trans Ind Inf 15:1809–1819

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Maamar A, Benahmed K (2019) A hybrid model for anomalies detection in AMI system combining K-means clustering and deep neural network. CMC-Comput Mater Contin 60:15–39

    Google Scholar 

  37. Zhang W, Dong X, Li H, Xu J, Wang D (2020) Unsupervised detection of abnormal electricity consumption behavior based on feature engineering. IEEE Access 8:55483–55500

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. Viegas JL, Esteves PR, Vieira SM (2018) Clustering-based novelty detection for identification of non-technical losses. Int J Electr Power Energy Syst 101:301–310

    Article  Google Scholar 

  39. Zhang Y, Ai Q, Wang H, Li Z, Zhou X (2020) Energy theft detection in an edge data center using threshold-based abnormality detector. Int J Electr Power Energy Syst 121:106162. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijepes.2020.106162

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Fan C, Xiao F, Zhao Y, Wang J (2018) Analytical investigation of autoencoder-based methods for unsupervised anomaly detection in building energy data. Appl Energy 211:1123–1135

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. de Souza MA, Pereira JL, Alves GO, de Oliveira BC, Melo ID, Garcia PA (2020) Detection and identification of energy theft in advanced metering infrastructures. Electric Power Syst Res 182:106258. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsr.2020.106258

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Hu T, Guo Q, Shen X, Sun H, Wu R, Xi H (2019) Utilizing unlabeled data to detect electricity fraud in AMI: a semisupervised deep learning approach. IEEE Trans Neural Netw Learn Syst 30:3287–3299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Bhat RR, Trevizan RD, Sengupta R, Li X, Bretas A (2016) Identifying nontechnical power loss via spatial and temporal deep learning. In 2016, 15th IEEE international conference on machine learning and applications (ICMLA), pp 272–279

  44. Tacon J, Melgarejo D, Rodriguez F, Lecumberry F, Fernandez A (2014) Semisupervised approach to non technical losses detection. Iberoamerican congress on pattern recognition, pp 698–705

  45. Viegas JL, Cepeda NM, Vieira SM (2018) Electricity fraud detection using committee semi-supervised learning. In: 2018 international joint conference on neural networks (IJCNN), pp 1-6

  46. Lu X, Zhou Y, Wang Z, Yi Y, Feng L, Wang F (2019) Knowledge embedded semi-supervised deep learning for detecting non-technical losses in the smart grid. Energies 12:3452. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12183452

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Li J, Wang F (2020) Non-technical loss detection in power grids with statistical profile images based on semi-supervised learning. Sensors 20:236. https://doi.org/10.3390/s20010236

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Ahmadi M, Lotfy ME, Danish MSS, Ryuto S, Yona A, Senjyu T (2019) Optimal multi-configuration and allocation of SVR, capacitor, centralised wind farm, and energy storage system: a multi-objective approach in a real distribution network. IET Renew Power Gen 13(5):762–773

  49. Ahmadi M, Danish MSS, Lotfy ME, Yona A, Hong YY, Senjyu T (2019) Multi-objective time-variant optimum automatic and fixed type of capacitor bank allocation considering minimization of switching steps. AIMS Energy 7(6)

  50. Ahmadi M, Lotfy ME, Shigenobu R, Howlader AM, Senjyu T (2019) Optimal sizing of multiple renewable energy resources and PV inverter reactive power control encompassing environmental, technical, and economic issues. IEEE Syst J 13(3):3026–3037

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Aslam Z, Javaid N, Ahmad A, Ahmed A, Gulfam SM (2020) A combined deep learning and ensemble learning methodology to avoid electricity theft in smart grids. Energies 13:5599. https://doi.org/10.3390/en13215599

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. State Grid Corporation of China Electricity Theft Dataset. Accessed: Jan. 2019. https://www.sgcc.com.cn/

  53. Khalid R, Javaid N (2020) A survey on hyperparameters optimization algorithms of forecasting models in smart grid. Sustain Cities Soc. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scs.2020.102275

  54. Rodriguez A, Laio A (2014) Clustering by fast search and find of density peaks. Science 344:1492–1496

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Mirjalili S, Mirjalili SM, Lewis A (2014) Grey wolf optimizer. Adv Eng Softw 69:46–61

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Liu H, Li Z, Li Y (2020) Noise reduction power stealing detection model based on self-balanced data set. Energies 13:1763. https://doi.org/10.3390/en13071763

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Meng Q, Catchpoole D, Skillicom D, Kennedy PJ (2017) Relational autoencoder for feature extraction. In: 2017 International joint conference on neural networks (IJCNN), pp 364–371

  58. Goodfellow I, Pouget-Abadie J, Mirza M, Xu B, Warde-Farley D, Ozair S, et al (2014) Generative adversarial nets. In: Advances in neural information processing systems, pp 2672–2680

  59. Irish Smart Meter Dataset Irish Social Science Data Archive. Accessed: Sep. 2019. https://www.ucd.ie/issda/data/commissionforenergyregulationcer/

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to acknowledge the support of Researchers Supporting Project Number (RSP2024R295), King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Funding

This work was supported by King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, through Researchers Supporting Project number (RSP2024R295).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

Z.A. and M.U.J. wrote the original draft; N.J. and M.A. performed supervision; A.A and N.A. performed conceptualization; Z.A., A.A. and M.A. performed simulations; N.J., M.U.J., N.A. and M.A. performed proofreading; A.A. performed funding acquisition and project management.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nadeem Javaid.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of interest

Authors declare no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Aslam, Z., Javaid, N., Javed, M.U. et al. A new clustering-based semi-supervised method to restrict the users from anomalous electricity consumption: supporting urbanization. Electr Eng (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00202-024-02362-3

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00202-024-02362-3

Keywords

Navigation