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Copper wire theft costs your city $000’s, or even $millions. Dhyan has a detection solution.
 Copper wire theft from city streetlights is a growing and expensive problem. When the power goes out at multiple lights at the same time, Ohli nodes can detect this and alert you and a police patrol to potential copper wire theft.

Copper wire theft is the most expensive cause of power outages in streetlights

Power outages in streetlights can be caused by many different things:

    • Pole knockdown
    • Severe weather
    • Vandalism
    • Aging infrastructure
    • Power theft
    • Copper wire theft

But of these, copper wire theft is the most expensive to repair due to the cost of the copper wire and the labor involved.

Power outage detection using “last gasp”

“Last gasp” is a well-known feature in the utility world. A small charge is retained in a capacitor so that when the power goes out, a signal can be sent. When Ohli nodes with the last-gasp feature are installed in all the streetlights in a street, if the power goes out to a group of lights at the same time there’s a good chance it is the start of a copper theft incident. The police can be alerted, given the GPS location and can apprehend the thieves in the act.

Sequence of events

  1. Thief cuts power to the streetlight
  2. Power loss to the streetlight is detected by Ohli node with “Last Gasp” feature and it notifies StreetMan running in the cloud
  3. StreetMan identifies the location, analyzes the information, and determines the power outage is due to copper theft
  4. StreetMan notifies the exact location of the copper theft to the command center and to the patrol car
  5. Patrol car reaches the crime spot in about 15 mins and apprehends the copper thief