THE OPEN UNIVERSITY OF SRI LANKA

DEPARTMENT OF ELECTRICAL & COMPUTER ENGINEERING

ECX6832 POWER SYSTEMS PLANNING
BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
ACADEMIC YEAR - 2019

ASSIGNMENT-1 Answer to all Questions and to be submitted as stated in the

activity diary

1. a. What are the causes of low power factor? Discuss briefly the impacts of low power factor of
industrial consumers, on both generating stations and electricity consumers.

b. The variation of load over a day, of a 400 V, three phase, 50 Hz industrial consumer is given
in Table 1.
Table 1

Time (hours) 0000-0900 0900-1500 1500-2100 2100-2400

Total Load (kW) 100 300 600 100
LL only LL + LL+ LL only
Load Description 200 kW
200 kW
IM load @ 0.8 p.f.
IM load @ 0.8 p.f.
LL- lighting load +
IM- Induction 300 kW
Motor IM load @ 0.6 p.f.

The distribution company offers a choice of two electricity tariff schemes for the above
consumer and is given in Table 2.
Table 2

Description of the Charge Tariff-A Tariff-B

Demand Charge (Rs/kVA) 750 600
Peak (1800-2100) 15.00 27.00
Energy Charge (Rs/kWh)
Off peak (other time) 15.00 12.50
Fixed Charge (Rs/Month) 2000 2000

Assuming a month of 30 working days

i) Calculate the load factor of the consumer.

ii) Determine the monthly electricity bills under Tariff-A and Tariff-B, and advice and the
consumer to select the more attractive tariff.

iii) If the consumer working load of 300 kW operating between 1500-2100 can be shifted
and uniformly distributed between 2100 and 0600 by introducing an extra working
shift, calculate the new load factor.

iv) Determine the new electricity bills under each tariff and hence advice the best tariff for
the consumer. What is the phrase you generally use in power systems planning to
describe the action taken by this consumer?

ECX 6832 Page [1] of [4] Assignment-1_2019

 v) Calculate the size of the capacitance/phase to be installed to improve the power factor
to be unity after implementing (iii). (Assume that the capacitor banks is star
connected).

vi) What would be the payback period of the investment on such a bank of capacitors?
Assume that the cost of capacitors is 2750 Rs/kVAr

2. a. The fuel-cost curve of an ith thermal generator of a group of “n” thermal generators can be
written as, $/hr where ai, bi and ci are constants and Pi is the generation
in MW. Prove that the generators can be optimally dispatched to a lossless network with a
total demand of (D), when the incremental cost of generation (⋋) and an individual generator
contribution (Pi) related with the equation given below:

where

b. A company owns three generating units operating with cost functions with the following a, b
and c parameters.

Unit a b c
1 15 1.4 0.04
2 25 1.6 0.05
3 20 1.8 0.02

Making use of the equations derived in (a), dispatch these three units optimally to supply a
total demand of 350 MW.

c. How would you dispatch the above three units if the company decides to buy some of the
energy from the spot market at a price of 8.20 $/MWh?

d. In addition to supplying 350 MW of demand as dispatched in (b), the company had an

opportunity to sell energy to the electricity market at a price of 10.20 $/MWh. What would be
the optimal amount of power that the company could sell?

You may assume the generation limits of the three units to be as follows:

P1,max ≤ 100 MW
P2,max ≤ 80 MW
P3,max ≤ 250 MW

e. What profit would the company earn from the sale calculated in (d)

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3. The demand for electrical energy in a country from 1993-2017 is given below:

Year Sales Year Sales Year Sales Year Sales

(GWh) (GWh) (GWh) (GWh)
1993 3979 2000 6841 2007 9811 2014 12357
1994 4386 2001 6625 2008 9893 2015 13090
1995 4800 2002 6946 2009 9856 2016 14148
1996 4527 2003 7612 2010 10628 2017 14671
1997 5146 2004 8159 2011 11528
1998 5683 2005 8769 2012 11801
1999 6173 2006 9385 2013 11898

a. Calculate the 25-year simple compound growth rate for above figures?

b. Fit a trend profile to the above data using both linear & exponential variations of the form

Sales = a + b.Time and Sales = a . e(k . Time)

c. Check the goodness of fit (R2) for the two models you have developed under (b), would you
accept the profiles (if so which, on what basis). Or reject?

d. Using the simple compound growth rate and the profiles you have developed, forecast the
electricity sales value from year 2018 to 2027?

e. However, the energy forecast made by the utility is as given under from year 2018 to 2027

Year Sales Year Sales

(GWh) (GWh)
2018 16188 2024 22404
2019 17285 2025 23522
2020 18456 2026 24697
2021 19370 2027 25933
2022 20331
2023 21342

f. Can you explain why the forecast figures from you is differ from the utility

g. Explain the limitations of the technique you have used in above calculations and describe
how you overcome this limitation?

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4. a. Over a period of 2 years, the following performance has been recorded in the log-sheet of a
50 MW and 100 MW generating units operating in a power system.

Table 3

Unit Capacity
Event Description 50 MW 100 MW
1 year 2 year 1 year 2nd year
st nd st

Total operating time with full load 7200 h 7200 h 3000 h 2760 h
Total duration of planned maintenance
900 h 700 h 720 h 740 h
work
Number of forced outages 12 12 15 14
Average duration of a forced outage 27.2 h 36 h 24 h 47.5 h
Fuel cost + variable maintenance cost 25 LKR/kWh 20 LKR/kWh

Calculate Forced Outage Rate for: 1. 50 MW & 2. 100 MW units

b. Two 50 MW units and a 100 MW unit (the characteristics are shown in Table 3) are available
to serve a power system, for which the load curve is shown in Figure 1.

Demand (MW)

150

100

50

Hours
0 6 16 18 22 24
Time

Figure 1

Do the following:

1. Draw the Load Duration Curve

2. Compute the plant factor, energy served and the cost of operation of each plant
3. Compute the loss of load probability (LOLP)
4. Compute the expected energy not served per annum (ENS)

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