Non-technical losses refer to all electricity consumption not billed and represent a significant problem that has consequences to all sectors and a substantial negative impact on some geographical areas. These losses are complex and are attributed to several factors, leading researchers, concessionaires, and regulatory agents to seek successful solutions to reduce their effects. Thus, this article aims to identify the worldwide panorama on non-technical losses, presenting their impacts and the leading strategies and policies to mitigate them, helping the public and private sectors to understand the theme to outline effective solutions to combat this problem. A systematic review of the literature has been performed using the review protocol Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyzes, which resulted in 121 journal articles published between 2000 and 2020. The results comprise a complete definition of non-technical loss, its consequences for countries, distribution utilities, and society, the barriers and strategies for their identification, and the principal policies and regulations in countries of all levels of Gross National Income per capita. The main contribution of this article is to demonstrate the impact of non-technical losses to society and the economy, and the research and investigation directions so that frauds in the electricity sector are mitigated.

Non-technical losses: A systematic contemporary article review

A Worked Example

Substitution between energy and non-energy inputs in the Netherlands, 1950-1976

Focused on Ecuador’s Economy this article analyses for the 2000–2014 period. (i) What have the drivers of CO2 emission in Ecuador been? (ii) What are the determining factors to be focused on with r...

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Moving towards a green decoupling between economic development and environmental stress? A new comprehensive approach for Ecuador

This study aimed to provide an overview of the research on non-technical losses, presenting a bibliometric analysis of 392 studies in conference proceedings. The research was conducted using Scopus database from 1987 to 2019. The results showed an increasing trend in the number of publications on this subject, demonstrating the worldwide interest of the scientific community in non-technical losses. In addition, it was found that the predominant language in the writing of publications was English, the countries that most published articles in the area were India, Brazil and USA and the cumulative number of articles tends to reach 600 at the end of 2021. Developing countries are encouraging research in the area to reduce the damage caused by non-technical losses in electricity distribution, contributing to society as a large part of these costs are passed on to the consumer.

Non-technical losses in electricity distribution: a bibliometric analysis

Introduction: Estimating the effectiveness of energy efficiency policy in reducing energy use requires a full understanding of the energy efficiency rebound effect, where energy use reductions differ from engineering expectations. Prior models that estimate the size of the total rebound effect ignore energy theft, which is a common feature in developing economies. Objectives: The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the role that energy theft plays in determination of the size of the rebound effect of energy efficiency policy in developing countries, using the Turkish economy and the specific Turkish regulation regarding compensation for energy theft as an example. Methods: We construct two energy-economy computable general equilibrium (CGE) models for Turkey that do and do not incorporate energy theft. Costs of energy theft are passed on to consumers through a recovery surcharge. Two energy efficiency policies are modeled; one leading to a 42% energy efficiency increment for the service sector and another leading to a 48% energy efficiency increment for households. Results: Without energy theft, rebound effects for both policies are small: between −1.4% and 3.1% for the service sector and between 0.4% and 2.1% for households. With energy theft, we see a −7.9% to −19.7% rebound for the service sector and a 10.4% to 40.7% rebound for households. The recovery surcharge on energy sales rises when energy efficiency gains affect the service sector but fall when they affect households. Conclusions: The interaction between energy efficiency and energy theft may be critical in accurate estimation of rebound effects where energy theft is prevalent. Where energy efficiency gains disproportionately reduce electricity sales rather than theft, the rising recovery surcharge leads to a negative rebound or super-conservation. However, where theft is disproportionately reduced rebound will be higher.

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Papers

The Rebound Effect of Energy Efficiency Policy in the Presence of Energy Theft