Kurunegala Report by SEA on Energy Consumption
Study Team:
Upali Daranagama, M M R Pathmasiri, Ramani Nissanka, Chamila Jayasekara, K S Kithsiri, Vijitha Ekanayake, Jude Sakaraja, Irosha Kalugalage, P S Sanjeewa, Pubudu Bandara Bamunawala, Lakshman Chandrarathna, Dayan Karunarathna, Kalpana De Silva and Saman Kulasuriya
BACKGROUND
The electricity sector in Sri Lanka is advancing rapidly, both in terms of the demand and in the level of penetration of services. Therefore, the sector posses a tough challenge to the government, more specifically to the utility, to infuse and maintain the necessary generation and transmission capabilities. Furthermore, the daily load curve is highly skewed, with a high peak lasting for a short duration. This has been an additional burden to the utility, whereas a flatter load curve would have made existing plants operate more evenly reducing the necessity of adding new plants to manage the high peak.
OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
The electricity utility of the country, the Ceylon Electricity Board records the daily demand curve. This information is widely used to make number of important decisions in the power sector such as forecasting of future demands, identifying the daily peak demand and devising necessary mechanisms to meet this demand, identifying seasonal variations and matching it with the availability of plants and the fuel mix etc. However, very little information is available on the constituent components of the electricity demand curve. Therefore, it is a daunting task to develop policies, guidelines, capacity/awareness building programs to target manufacturers, vendors and users in different sectors and to promote the optimum use of electricity without having a proper understanding of their requirements and preferences in using electricity and types of equipment. In this light, load research activities at the end user point generate the much needed information.
The specific objective of this research activity is to identify the patterns of utilizing electricity in the households in different tariff categories in the selected area. Further it is expected to determine how different loads (lighting, refrigerator, entertainment etc.) contribute to the overall consumption, in this case, more importantly the lighting load. The information on different equipments used, and usage of equipment in different times of the day will also be collected and analyzed. This exercise will be the foundation to identify suitable demand side management measures and the appropriate modes introducing them.
Kurunegala Report by SEA on Energy Consumption