Detection of Electricity Theft Cyber-Attacks In Renewable Distributed Generation for Future IoT-based Smart Electric Meters

Abstract

Electricity theft represents a pressing problem that has brought enormous financial losses to electric utility companies worldwide. In the United States alone, $6 billion worth of electricity is stolen annually. Traditionally, electricity theft is committed in the consumption domain via physical attacks that includes line tapping or meter tampering. The smart grid paradigm opens the door to new forms of electricity theft attacks. First, electricity theft can be committed in a cyber manner. With the advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), smart meters are installed at the customers’ premises and regularly report the customers’ consumption for monitoring and billing purposes. In this context, malicious customers can launch cyber-attacks on the smart meters to manipulate the readings in a way that reduces their electricity bill. Second, the smart grid paradigm enables customers to install renewable-based distributed generation (DG) units at their premises to generate energy and sell it back to the grid operator and hence make a profit.