- Before
- Works the tamper-alarm list and approves 15–20 site visits a day, knowing most alarms are crews, batteries and comms faults. “A tamper alarm on its own is noise. A cover opening the night the load fell is a case.”
- Now
- Starts with the overnight suspects, sees the tamper event, the voltage signature and the break in the load shape on one timeline, and approves each visit with its safety notes.
One meter, from an overnight score to a crew on site
Lumina Utilities serves 1,238,400 smart meters across Aldermoor, Kestrel Vale, Corvin Heights, Saltmere and Harrowfield. On the night of Sunday 4 October, the cover of one meter on Calloway Row opens at 02:13. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
- 0104:10–04:52
Every meter read, every transformer balanced
Interval reader and Energy balancerOvernight the interval reader takes 118.9M 15-minute reads and 41,207 events from 1,238,400 meters. The energy balancer balances 9,412 transformers for the last 30 days; 412 are above their expected loss. On feeder ALD-12, TX-4471 on Calloway Row delivered 18,600 kWh and billed 16,540 kWh — a gap of 11.1% against 3.2% expected, 1,465 kWh nobody can account for.
“The gap says where; the suspects say who.”
- 02Morning
The suspects chart: one dot far below the cluster
Nadia Okafor · Revenue protection analystNadia covers Aldermoor and Kestrel Vale. Her home screen plots each of ALD-12's 214 meters by its own change in use against its neighbours' change on the same transformer, last 7 days against the prior 60. The cluster sits on the diagonal band: a cooler October, everyone using a little less. Four of them are suspects. 17 Calloway Row scores highest, at 94: red with an amber ring, a tamper event and a voltage signature together.
17 Calloway Row · Suspect · Bypass suspected · 94/100
- 03Replay
Replay the month and watch one meter break away
Nadia Okafor · Revenue protection analystThe replay runs 29 days, 14 Sep to 12 Oct. The cluster drifts with the weather; on 5 October one dot breaks away from it. By Wed 7 Oct, 17 Calloway Row already scores 63 and is falling while its neighbours hold. By last night it is down 71% while its 21 neighbours fell 6%.
“Replay · on Wed 7 Oct this meter scored 63”
- 04Ruled out
The honest explanations come off first
ExplainerBefore any score, the explainer checks billing for move-outs, the solar connections register, work orders, outage records and tariff changes. Last night it cleared 1,161 of the 1,912 meters that fell away from their neighbours. On ALD-12, 120 Brannock Road fell 79% but moved out on 2 Oct; 6 Hesketh Mews fell 61% after rooftop solar was connected on 30 Sep; two cover-open alarms were Lumina's own meter work, with no fall in use.
Limit: the explainer never clears a meter with an open tamper event without an analyst, and writes the reason on every clearance.
- 05The case file
94 out of 100, and every point names its source
Signature matcherThe case file lines up the meter events, the evening voltage, the energy a day and an hour-by-hour heatmap on one time axis, with the break on 5 Oct. The score under scoring v2.3: fall against neighbours 33 of 35, tamper and meter events 25 of 25, voltage signature 18 of 20, break in the load shape 14 of 15, likeness to confirmed cases 4 of 5. About 22.2 kWh a day is unbilled — 178 kWh since 5 Oct, $1,870 a year.
“Evening voltage 4.8 V below the neighbours' median since 5 Oct, while the metered load is low”
- 06The night of 4 October
The cover opens, and the load never comes back
Signature matcherThe night zoom shows 15-minute reads from Sunday 18:00 to Tuesday 06:00. At 02:13 the meter cover opens. At 02:14 power goes off at this meter only, for 5 min 12 s, while the 21 other meters on TX-4471 stay on — so it was not the network. Power is restored at 02:19 and the cover closes at 02:31. From then on the evening peak is gone and the voltage at the meter sits below its neighbours': current is being drawn through the service that the meter does not count.
“02:14 Power off at this meter only (5 min 12 s)”
- 07How it was built
Built step by step, and like bypasses already confirmed
Six agentsThe case shows how it was built, agent by agent, with a time on each step, and finishes with the visit planner's draft waiting for Nadia. The likeness check compares it with 1,184 confirmed theft cases since 2019: 38 Kestrel Vale Road, a confirmed bypass in March with $3,120 back-billed; 5 Saltmere Drive, June, $2,460; and 212 more with the same pattern.
“cover open + one-meter outage at night + evening sag”
- 08One click
The visit, approved with its safety notes
Nadia Okafor · Revenue protection analystThe visit planner has drafted work order WO-RP-2026-08841: crew RP-3, Dev Marsh and Kieran Holt, Wed 14 Oct 09:30–10:30, stop 1 of 6 on the Aldermoor route, unannounced under supply terms §14.3. It lists what to bring — replacement meter, seals ×4, clamp meter, camera, fuse pliers — and a note to the crew that 41 Calloway Row, on the same transformer, is on the route too. Nadia approves and schedules it.
“Assume a live bypass. Two-person crew · class 0 insulated gloves · test before touch · isolate at the pole fuse on TX-4471 before the meter is removed.”
- 09The visits board
Six stops, 42 km, and every result back to its case
Dev Marsh · Field revenue inspector, crew RP-3The visits board shows what is still to approve, what is scheduled, which crew is on site now and which results are back. Dev's route for Wed 14 Oct starts at the Aldermoor depot at 08:45 with 17 Calloway Row. Monday's results are already in: a live jumper across the meter terminals at 22 Kestrel Vale Road, made safe and sealed with six photos; a magnet at 8 Pike Street; and at 31 Saltmere Drive no theft — a new heat pump, with a scoring note sent.
“Nothing goes to a crew until an analyst approves it.”
- 10Month end
One number for the board, and every dollar of it shown
Graham Pell · Loss-reduction managerGraham's September loss report: $4.90M recovered since go-live in March, an annual rate of $8.4M; 61% of visits found theft, 251 of 412, against 13% before go-live; 37 live bypasses made safe in Q3, each the day it was found; non-technical loss at an estimated 1.1% of energy, against 1.4% in 2025. Recovery counts only back-bills paid or on a plan. He signs the month.
“The run rate since March, $4.90M in seven months, gives the same $8.4M a year.”