Reduction of Technical and Non-Technical Losses in Distribution Networks [WG 2015-2]
Regarding distribution networks, annual electricity losses are on average at about 2 to 12% in the European Union countries according to ERGEG Position Paper on Treatment of Losses by Network Operators.
In the same time, the European Energy Efficiency Directive (Art. 15.2) requires all Member States to assess the potential for energy efficiency and to specify measures to improve it. Losses reduction becomes a real stake for all European countries.
Last developments in technologies bring several promising solutions contributing to a full process improvement. For instance, smart metering roll-out and availability of new sensors make potentially available a large number of operational data on the grid; IT and data mining techniques make possible to manage such a huge volume of data to asses and locate losses; and many interesting tracks are on investigation to reduce losses, either based on new components or innovative operation mode.