Improving utility energy efficiency through loss identification

With worldwide increasing focus on energy efficiency, conservation, and demand reduction, technical losses are under intense scrutiny among power utilities. A critical issue is to understand where technical losses occur and how they may be most effectively mitigated. This paper investigates technical loss on typical U.S. feeders as a function of feeder configuration, e.g. feeder length, load density, secondary and service lengths. Both power and energy losses are examined based on feeder models representing rural, semi-rural, suburban, and urban feeder types. Losses in distribution transformers and main feeder conductors are identified to be the major contributors for both power and energy losses. Differences in the breakdown of losses by component, on a power and energy basis are also compared and discussed.