The State of Santa Catarina Utility, named CELESC, which distributes electricity for 2.6 million consumers, has implemented WEG's IoT solution, through telemetry technology, and has been achieving important results with the identification of technical losses, as well as non-technical losses known as illegal power supply connections. 

Since the beginning of this initiative, which started eight years ago upon a partnership between WEG and CELESC, about 14,750 units have already been measured, with an identification of more than 1020 illegal power supply connections. Although most deviations occur in Group B users, that is, consumers with a supply voltage below 2.3 kV, it is through the detection of illegal connections in Group A (higher demand consumers) where the Utility found out the majority of the non-technical losses. 

The total amount of losses recovered during this period was in the range of R$ 107 million (US$ 20 million), representing about 146,500 GWh. (The Utility, upon identification via IoT solution, has to right to charge the consumers back for their eventual technical and non-technical losses.)

WEG's 4.0 technology also helped the Utility to detect new ways of illegal power supply connections. One of them, named by the technical teams as "remote control fraud", allows the illegal system to be completely switched-off with a simple click, just before the physical checking is done. “The telemetry system is regarded as an excellent support tool to minimize illegal power supply connections our grid. It is a highly efficient technology, which allows non-stop monitoring of electricity consumption in each use and greatly reduces the possibility of fraudulent actions”, says Tiago Lage Nascimento, CELESC´s Measurement Automation Division Head Office.