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Research Publications (Engineering and Built Environment)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://ir-dev.dut.ac.za/handle/10321/215

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    Curbing electricity theft using wireless technique with communication constraints
    (IEEE, 2020-08) Tshikomba, Salome C.; Estrice, Milton; Ojo, Evans E.; Davidson, Innocent E.
    Utility services are experiencing a common problem of power losses, which impose a significant impact on their annual budget. Practically, power losses consist of technical losses and non-technical losses. Technical losses are due to operations and aging of infrastructure, while nontechnical losses (NTL) are due to non-metered energy. The focus is on managing non-technical losses using an automation wireless method. The wireless ZigBee technique is proposed and further investigated for communication failure over long distances while solving the problem of stealing electricity. Advance-metering infrastructure (AMI) technique and smart meters are feasible for system integration; that is why they are chosen to be part of this study. The success of the study depends on quality data of the Utility, meaning the more accurate the data, the easier the analysis of outliers. The operation and planning of revenue protection contain a large amount of data that needs to be worked on, so data mining assists in that regard. Then the load profiling method assists in illustrating the variation in demandJelectricalload over a specific time. This is a preliminary investigation using a wireless communication technique as a viable solution in curbing electricity theft. The uniqueness of the proposed ZigBee system is that it recognizes the everyday act of stealing electricity through tempering with the meter box and tapping of the supply.
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    A secured access control architecture consideration for PLC based smart grids
    (SATNAC, 2015) Mooketsio, Thsepiso; Nleya, Bakhe; Dewa, Mendon; Mutsvangwa, Andrew
    Abstract—Power supply, distribution and generation industry is now turning the existing electrical grids to smart grids, thus making them more efficient in both effective power management and reliability, reduced production costs, and more environmen-tally friendly energy generation. Despite its attractive features, Smart Grid technology remains vulnerable to security threats. This paper summaries some of these potential security issues by exploring a data access control mechanism that ensures privacy to customers. The proposed access control mechanism gives selec-tive access to consumer data stored in data repositories and used by different smart grid users. A n attribute-based encryption (ABE) is suggested. The entire grid network is subdivided into clusters each with its own remote terminal unit (RTU) as well as a gateway smart meter. User data in a given cluster is aggregated and sent to the local substation where it is monitored by the RTU. RTUs and users have attributes and cryptographic keys dis-tributed by several key distribution centers (KDC). RTUs send data encrypted under a set of attributes. Users can decrypt infor-mation provided they have valid attributes. The access control scheme is quite resilient because of its b e i n g distributed in na-ture and does not rely on a single KDC to distribute keys. The encryption algorithm is based on Diffie-Hellman key establish-ment protocol and hash-based message authentication code, which allows smart meters at different clusters of the smart grid to mu-tually authenticate prior to data/information exchange and in the process maintaining low latency as well as relatively fewer au-thentication associated messages . Overall the control scheme is relatively collusion resistant.