Posted on 05/19/2022 10:32:22 PM PDT by markomalley
A Thai man in the northeastern province of Nakhon Ratchasima has been arrested after being caught using free electricity for the past 6 months. He was Bitcoin mining.
(Snip)
The officer from Nakhon Ratchasima’s Provincial Electricity Authority, Ronnachai Asanaphan, explained that it was suspicious that the building had not been using electricity for 6 months, but there was someone living there.
PEA officers visited the site and checked the building’s energy meter. They found that the building was actually using a lot of power, comparable to a small factory, and the building owner will be sent a bill to pay about 10,000 baht per month to compensate for the power usage.
Yesterday, officers from PEA and police revisited the building to meet the owner, but it was closed. The officers contacted the building owner and found that a 31 year old man, Ekkaphan, was renting it. Ekkaphan said that he was working in another province and was unable to meet the police yesterday. But he admitted that he had hired electric maintenance contractors to modify the power meter “because he needed a lot of power for his crypto mining but didn’t want to pay an expensive fee”.
(Excerpt) Read more at thethaiger.com ...
Gotta give him credit for trying...
(In the States, I've seen people trying to inductively couple electricity from high tension distribution lines before. See here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/23799/has-anyone-been-caught-using-inductive-coupling-to-steal-power or here: https://youtu.be/CLS8pbDNHbk)
they are trying to connect a transformer to a live power line?
Inductive coupling means no direct contact. If you don’t know about electronics, don’t try it at home lol.
In the case of the Thai guy, he got somebody to bypass the meter. Not the first time I’ve heard of it TBH.
Penny wise, pound foolish.
Reddy Kilowatt paid for my food, clothing, and education growing up.
A shocking image! ⚡⚡⚡
Electrifying! 🔌
And energizing! 🤸♂️
You were lightning 🌩️ fast!
Like a bolt ⚡!
Power 🔋 to you!
😁
What’s wrong with tapping into free electricity?
Reddy Kilowatt paid for my food, clothing, and education growing up.
_________
I’ll bite….what you talking ’bout Willis?
I still remember that cute little jingle, “electricity is penny cheap, from NSP to you.” 😂
Oh my 😳😁😜
Hey, he’s got like little red devil horns, so....
(I had never paid attention to that before lol)
Radio Shack had a simple kit to make an AM radio that picked up RF inductively to power it. Just a few parts and a few bucks. Nice little thing.
If an address electric bill goes from low to much higher after an owner change, most electric companies will investigate if the last owner was bypassing the meter in some way and that they removed “the cheat” before moving out.
Things aren't quite as "sophisticated" (controlled) here.
I know some folks who have solar installed and connected through the mains. So they draw electric from the grid at night and feed it back into the grid during the day. No permit from the PEA.
As long as the electric bill doesn't go negative for the billing period, everybody is happy.
I’ve never had solar but don’t you have to let the electric company know so they can setup the net metering? If so they would know that is in the mix.
They use old fashioned mechanical meters here, not electronic smart meters like the States converted to years ago.
When it comes time to read the meter, they have a kid go around with a handheld computer and of this portable thermal printers like you may have seen at a rental car check-in point. He prints the bill out and sticks it in your mailbox. When he gets back to the office after doing his rounds for the day, he plugs the computer into the network and uploads ask the fresh meter readings...you can pay the bill online immediately after he uploads it.
If the current flows into the grid from solar instead of out of the grid into your premise, the meter runs backwards. As long as they can bill you for a few kilowatts a month, nobody asks questions. Electricity here in my province is about 1.3¢ per kilowatt hour, so making sure that they can bill 20 or 30 kWh per month is no major expense.
And that's where this kid in Nakhon Ratchasima screwed up. Had he let them bill him for a few kilowatts a month, nobody would've ever caught him.
I remember him from the 1970s for sure
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