Electricity Demand in Sri Lanka - Conclusions & Recommendations

 Part 1 : Electricity Demand in Sri Lanka -  Key Findings

Conclusions

• a. Time interval of Peak time coincides with the system peak hours and no further revision is required in Peak time interval.
• b. Average power demand on Sundays during “Day” and “Peak” intervals is higher than the average “Off-Peak” demand of a typical weekday. Therefore, altering TOU time intervals for Sundays and Public Holidays as off-peak is inappropriate to Sri Lanka.
• c. Despite natural improvements in system load factor over the past fifteen years, aggressive action is still required to curb further growth in peak demand, since an adverse trend is observed during recent past.
• d. Mandating the TOU tariff for Bulk consumers has not become effective as anticipated and there is much potential for consumers to reduce their peak demand by shifting loads and improving their power factors. Peak time tariff can be increased further as an incentive to reduce system peak demand.

Recommendations

a. Distribution Licensees have already installed programmable meters with memory capacity, for all the bulk consumers of General Purpose category. Data from these meters shall be used to conduct a further study to analyze the implications of introducing mandatory TOU tariff scheme for bulk General Purpose consumers. Study should cover both demand shifting potential of the consumers and the revenue implications of the utilities.

b. A detailed study should be conducted on the load profiles of Domestic consumers, whom contribute heavily to the system peak demand, the possibility to adopt mandatory/ optional TOU tariff for larger domestic consumers shall be examined through this study. Since, existing metering equipment of domestic consumers is not geared for such data collection, sample data will have to be collected using data loggers.

c. Implementation of power factor charges and/or reactive energy (kVArh) charges shall be further studied to curb increasing MVAr demand, especially on the charge value and related incentive mechanism.

d. The relative rates for Time-Of-Use intervals shall be reexamined and adjusted (increase peak charges) to ensure that price signals are adequate to motivate consumers to shift demand from peak to off-peak time.

Original Source: Excerpt of the Study Report on Electricity Demand Curve and System Peak Reduction released by The Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka, December 2012