Development of agricultural demand side management project

The authors present an agricultural demand-side management (DSM) project based on direct control of utility equipment in situations where indirect control through tariff incentives and direct control of customer equipment are not feasible due to local social and political problems. The different strategies for utility equipment control are identified and their relative techno-economic merits are investigated. Agricultural DSM through distribution transformer control is recommended. A simplified model based on the KVAOHM of the feeder is presented to estimate the impact of DSM on distribution system expansion planning to meet the growing demand over a 10-15 year period. KVAOHM is defined as the sum of products of loads and the resistance of the sections constituting the feeders. The proposed project is illustrated on a practical distribution system covering a 1500 km² area and serving about 20000 customers