One of the expanding problems for utilities is copper theft. Actually it’s a grueling trial for everyone with an infrastructure that relies on copper wire, conductor, tubing, and any other copper related asset. The DOE reported that copper theft costs high-risk industries about US$1 billion annually. To put it in perspective, one study estimated that a single theft of about US$100 worth of copper can cost a business over US$5,000 to repair. It’s a flourishing racket because the price paid for copper by scrap yards is at near record highs and it’s difficult to prevent. Traditional anti-theft methods were developed before criminals became so sophisticated and they’re not working.
I was introduced to the copper theft shortly after becoming a substation engineer, (i.e., a very long time ago). The crime wasn’t as common in those days since it was more of a target of opportunity. We were installing a 2/0 copper grid in one of my substation projects. The wire had been placed in the trenches and welding started, but quitting time came and the crew went home. The next morning, no copper — it was an expensive lesson. Several years later I saw the crime had escalated. Thieves knew we used copper wire to ground our substation’s chain link fences.
After removing all the fence grounding, a thief went inside the substation for the grounding wire on the steel structures and equipment. He did okay until he climbed onto the top of the station’s transformer and came in contact with an energized conductor. The death got a lot of media attention resulting in changes to our grounding standards. Instead of using copper wire, we switched to copper-clad steel (CCS) products for all above grade grounding pigtails, and the company’s copper thefts dropped significantly after that.
Technological Strategies
What got me thinking about these incidents was a recent uptick in press releases from producers of copper theft deterrents. Then a major story about the growing problem appeared in the Wall Street Journal. They pointed out that copper theft is a spreading global problem that leaves a trail of disastrous damage behind it. The crime is costing utilities millions of dollars to repair and jeopardizes public safety. They quoted AT&T saying the thefts have cost them $76 million in the first ten months of 2025 alone and that’s only one company. That got AT&T lobbying federal, state, and local authorities to make it easier to replace the copper networks with modern technologies.
So what are these modern technologies that can throw a monkey wrench into the growth pattern of copper theft? As previously discussed, CCS products have proven to be successful deterrent. That has been joined by CCA (copper-clad aluminum core) products and many other conductor adaptations. Fabricators are also offering microscopic dots loaded with data, embedded RFID microchips with GPS, and laser-etching serial codes for conductors. Don’t forget the digital substation in this copper cable combat. These state-of-the-art facilities have removed thousands of tons of copper control cables with fiber optics and wireless communications.
Another up and coming application that caught my attention are the solar plus-storage streetlight systems. Traditional streetlighting uses thousands of miles of copper cable that are being stolen at an alarming rate. Cities and utilities are swapping those old-school streetlights out because these cutting-edge devices have no power cables, Also, they’re environmentally friendly with their clean energy replacements. Speaking of clean energy, EV charging cables are high on criminals’ hit list.
Telltale Strategies
Tesla is testing the CatStrap DyeDefender theft prevention system on their high-speed EV charging stations. It resists cutting, but if it is cut, its pressurized staining dye system sprays a special bright-blue dye on the perp. It’s very hard to remove and it turns the thief into a giant Smurf, which makes identification easy! The system is being tested as an anti-vandalism and anti-theft deterrent on Tesla’s EV supercharging station cables.
Another promising deterrent tool is the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into copper crime fighting systems. One promising adaptation is AI-power systems that are learning to differentiate between normal outages and copper theft induced outages by analyzing electrical patterns. Another benefit is it can spot the patterns in a gradually failing cable and allow replacement before a failure, which makes customer happier. Using an advanced technological approach is a marked shift in combating copper crimes from reactive to proactive. Plus it’s amusing thinking about a bright-blue thief trying to explain they’re not big Smurfs to law enforcement!
