A method for detecting electric meter installation issues includes: determining an initial orientation of an electric meter based on initial acceleration measurements from an accelerometer positioned in the electric meter. Subsequent acceleration measurements from the accelerometer may be continuously monitoring, and a subsequent orientation of the electric meter may be determined based on the subsequent acceleration measurements. A difference between the initial orientation and the subsequent orientation based on the initial acceleration measurements and the subsequent acceleration measurements may be determined and compared to a threshold value. Based on the difference exceeding the threshold value, a notification of a change in orientation of the electric meter may be generated to a head-end system.

An electronic locking mechanism has a body portion with movable retaining members that are controlled utilizing an electrically controlled actuator. The actuator operates the retaining member to move radially outwardly of the body portion circumference in a locked position and allows the retaining member to move radially inwardly of the circumference in an unlocked position. An electronic key can be utilized to operate the electronic locking mechanism.

The present invention relates to an apparatus and method for securing a box cover to a watthour meter socket box and relates to an apparatus, a system and method including a ring comprising an annular body portion and further comprising first and second tab members and a connective member disposed on the first tab member. The connective member comprises a fastening member comprising a fastener body portion forming a head section and a shaft section. The shaft section forms an open end, and the fastener body portion comprises a fastener interior surface defining a cavity extending axially from the open end and into at least the shaft section, and wherein the exterior surface of the shaft section forms a thread member. A receiver member is disposed on the second tab member, wherein the receiver member comprises an interior surface defining a receiving groove adapted to threadably receive the thread member of the shaft section, the first and second tab members being securable by the connective member and receiver member, and wherein the interior surface of the receiver member is configured for receiving a locking member, and the fastener interior surface is configured for interconnection with the locking member.

A power metering apparatus, a power metering server, and a power metering method based on a blockchain are disclosed. Particularly, in order to simultaneously assure integrity and transparency of power metering data based on a blockchain, power metering data generated by measuring an amount of power generated by an energy source and a unique key are stored in a database linked to a power metering server, and a digitally signed hash value of the power metering data is stored in a blockchain node. Accordingly, disclosed are blockchain-based power metering system and method for preventing forgery and tampering of power metering data, solving a problem associated with a blockchain storage capacity that may occur when storing the power metering data, and protecting sensitive information on the power metering data.

A device for detecting energy theft from a utility network configured to access energy data for utilities, generate energy results, identify an outlying utility in the energy results, access behavioral data, determine whether there is a likelihood of energy theft associated with the outlying utility, generate descriptive results from the behavioral data indicating the likelihood of energy theft, receive a response of whether the energy theft occurred, and refine operation of the detecting of energy theft of the device.

Various embodiments relate to detecting loss of electrical energy. A method of detecting loss of electrical energy may include determining, for a number of time samples, a neutral current and an imputed neutral current of an electrical energy metering system. Further, the method may include determining, for each of the number of time samples, a squared difference between the neutral current and the imputed neutral current. The method may further include detecting, based on the squared difference, loss of electrical energy from the electrical energy metering system.

The present disclosure is concerned with measuring the amount of electrical energy consumed even when the electric meter has been tampered with. Electric meters may be fraudulently tampered with by connecting a bypass element, such as a conductive wire or cable, across the terminals of the meter in order to bypass the electric meter. This means that only part of the consumed electrical current passes through the electric meter for measurement, resulting in some of the consumed electrical energy not being measured and therefore not being billed for. However, in the present invention a technique has been developed to enable the electric meter to determine the amount of electrical current that bypasses the meter and therefore measure the amount electrical energy consumed even when the electric meter has been tampered with.

A method of monitoring a set of meters that are connected to a common remote processor device, the method comprising both first steps performed in each meter for: acquiring primary measurements of a magnitude representative of the occurrence of an anomaly; selecting pertinent measurements from the primary measurements, the pertinent measurements satisfying a pertinence criterion; regularly transmitting the pertinent measurements to the remote processor device; and second steps performed in the remote processor device, for: comparing, for each meter, the pertinent measurements with a detection threshold common to all of the meters of the set of meters in order to attempt detecting an anomaly associated with said meter; and adjusting the detection threshold dynamically as a function of the percentage of meters detected as being associated with an anomaly.

Techniques for implementing a fault-tolerant power supply are described. In an example, a system converts an alternating-current (AC) voltage to an initial direct current (DC) voltage. The system further converts the initial DC voltage to a first DC voltage and a second DC voltage. The system applies the first DC voltage to a high-priority device such as a metrology device. The system applies the second DC voltage to a low-priority or peripheral device. When the initial DC voltage is outside a voltage range, the system deactivates the second DC voltage to the lower-priority device and maintains the first DC voltage to the metrology device.

Various embodiments relate to detecting theft of electrical energy. A method of detecting theft of electrical energy may include measuring, for each time sample of a number of time samples, a neutral current of an electrical energy metering system. The method may further include summing, for each time sample of the number of time samples, a number of measured phase current values of the electrical energy metering system to determine an imputed neutral current. Further, the method may include determining, for each time sample of the number of time samples, a squared difference between the measured neutral current and the imputed neutral current. Moreover, the method may include integrating, for each time sample of the number of time samples, the squared difference to determine an accumulator value. In addition, the method may include detecting, based on the accumulator value, theft of electrical energy from the electrical energy metering system.