Patent ID: 7936163

Claim:
A method for detecting electricity theft in an electricity meter, said method comprising: sensing a flow of load energy through the electricity meter when the meter is in a first meter position; sensing a first power outage at the meter; determining if no load energy is flowing through the meter after power has been restored to the meter after the first power outage and when the meter is in a second meter position that is electrically inverted with respect to the first meter position; sensing a second power outage at the meter, wherein the second power outage occurs after the first power outage; determining if load energy is flowing through the meter after power has been restored to the meter after the second power outage and when the meter is in the first meter position; and outputting an indication of a potential electricity theft after determining that no load energy was flowing through the meter after the first power outage and after determining that load energy was flowing through the meter after the second power outage.