Electricity theft

An electrical utility power box that has been forced open to allow electricity to be illegally accessed by directly hooking it from the line.

What's known as "cable hooking" is the most used method. 80% of global power theft is by direct tapping from the line. The consumer taps into a power line from a point ahead of the energy meter. This energy consumption is unmeasured and procured with or without switches. It can cause severe electric shock or fire outbreak.

In this method, the input terminal and output terminal of the energy meter is bridged, preventing the energy from registering in the energy meter.[4]

Meters are manipulated via a remote by installing a circuit inside the meter so that the meter can be slowed down at any time. This kind of modification can evade external inspection attempts because the meter is always correct unless the remote is turned on.

This type of tampering is done to electromechanical meters with a rotating element. Foreign material is placed inside the meter to obstruct the free movement of the disc. A slower rotating disk signals less energy consumption.

ESD tampering is done on electronic meter to make it either latent damage or permanent damage. Detection can be done correctly in high end meters only.

Brazil is South America's largest single energy user, accounting for around 36% of total energy consumption. The incidence of energy theft is roughly 15%, and it exceeds 50% in the country's north. [7][8][9] Electricity theft cost BRL 6.5 billion (about €1.15 billion) in 2020 alone.[7][10][11]

President of Northeast Group Ben Gardner stated: "India loses more money to theft than any other country in the world. The state of Maharashtra—which includes Mumbai—alone loses $2.8 billion per year, more than all but eight countries in the world. Nationally, total transmission and distribution losses approach 23% and some states' losses exceed 50%."[12]

In Turkey electricity theft is mainly concentrated in the Southeastern and Eastern Anatolia regions, meanwhile in the Aegean Region it has the lowest prevalence. Dicle and Van Gölü companies were the most heavily effected electricity distributors in the country. In 2020 Mardin (72.7%), Şırnak (70.9%) and Diyarbakır (65.4%) provinces have had the highest use of stolen electricity. In contrast Denizli (1.3%) have had the lowest prevalence among Turkish provinces with regard to electricity theft.[13]

The cost of the electricity theft is compensated nationally, where users in every province pay an equal amount of electricity theft tax, independent from the prevalence of theft in respective province. Since 2013 there had been efforts to regionalize the theft tax, but these were not implemented. The national tax system is planned to be continued until the end of 2025.[14]