Patent ID: 7398168

Claim:
A method for monitoring the power flowing through an electric power transmission line set, comprising: selecting positions for a preferred placement for a plurality of magnetic field monitors by (a) determining a conductor configuration a power flow of the transmission line set at a location along the transmission line set, and (b) determining positions in a substantially planar area that is transverse to said transmission line set at said location where a predetermined change in said power flow results in a maximum change in the magnetic field at the positions; placing said magnetic field monitors at said selected positions for collecting magnetic field data; performing a computational analysis on said magnetic field data to determine a power flow through said transmission line set; and communicating said power flow to an end user; wherein said sub-step of determining the conductor configuration and power flow of the transmission line set includes: obtaining horizontal and vertical distances between each conductor and a plurality of measuring points across the substantially planar area to determine the conductor configuration of the transmission line set; obtaining measured magnetic field values at said measuring points; generating, through computation performed on a digital computer, predicted magnetic field values and at each measuring point for a range of line set power flows; and selecting the line set power flow where the predicted values have a best fit with the measured values.