ABSTRACT

In power systems, electricity supply from the utility is usually sufficient to cater for load demand. However, in most cases when there are overload and power losses, matching emergency supply with demand may pose a challenge. To mitigate the dire consequences of insufficient generation and other problems, this thesis presents an efficient load management for Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU). The load management is the priority load management, and its purpose is to match load demand to supply through load shedding. The major load areas in MOUAU were used as case study. The load management was developed for the individual load areas. The data were collected from the electricity department of Works and Physical Planning Unit, MOUAU using questionnaire and interview. The data were analysed with Electrical Transient and Power Analysis (ETAP) and MATRIX Laboratory (MATLAB) softwares. The method of analysis used is Holistic method: The load of the areas studied is divided into priority and the least priority load is shed first. For the proposed load management, two cases were considered based on synchronization of the three generators used in MOUAU. The first case is where the three generators are synchronized on a common busbar, while the second case is where two of the generators are synchronized on a common busbar, and the remaining generator is connected to a suitable bus. The two cases considered were compared to know the case that will be effective in reducing power losses. The cost involved in running the exiting power plant and the proposed power plant of MOUAU were compared. Results revealed that the fixed demand charge involved in running the existing power plant and the proposed power plant are N576/KVA and N192/KVA respectively. The results indicated that the cost of running the existing power plant is 75% higher than the cost of running the proposed power plant which is 25%. For the existing MOUAU 8-bus network, power losses of 8.4kW and 8.1kVar existed. The result of case 1 showed 30.5kW and 29.5kVar while that of case 2 showed 7.8kW and 7.5kVar power losses. The results obtained when SVCs were installed on the sensitive buses showed 7.2kW and 6.9kVar power losses. This showed 48% and 47.9% reduction of the active and reactive power losses respectively.