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How Delhi cut electricity loss from 50 to 5 percent

592 points · 336 comments · rbanffy

  1. groos · · focus · HN ↗
    The effort to reduce electricity theft has had an interesting side effect. One of the ways to prevent theft is to insulate the power lines going into neighborhoods. This also makes them safe for monkeys to use as 'roads' with the result that roving gangs of monkeys move from neighborhood to neighborhood with ease and also have access to the upper floor of apartment buildings because of the proximity of the power lines. I saw this in person a few years ago.
    1. quickthrowman · · focus · HN ↗
      > One of the ways to prevent theft is to insulate the power lines going into neighborhoods.

      This is going to be less effective going forward due to insulation piercing connectors, which simply clamp around an insulated conductor and pierce the insulation to connect to the conductor underneath.

      A suitably insane person could also just strip the insulation from a small segment of the conductor, one phase at a time, and hand wrap a splice conductor around the live one and tape it up.

      Great news for the monkeys though! I would not want to witness a monkey making contact with two uninsulated conductors on different phases, yeesh.

      1. tinuviel · · focus · HN ↗
        You have to be suitably insane to do that. Most aren't.
        1. adithyassekhar · · focus · HN ↗
          Someone stealing from a live wire already is
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