Potential for promotion of demand side management through a market based approach

Abstract

Today with the developments of technology, expansion and developments in industries and increase in the standard of living of the society, the demand for electricity keeps rising every day. It is the responsibility of the utility to increase its supply to meet this demand in order maintain the demand supply balance. It is not always economical to meet this increasing demand by building new power plants. Hence today, more interest is shown towards controlling the demand, through Demand Side Management (DSM). In this thesis, several customer categories were first studied in order to identify the potential DSM options that can be implemented. The selected option was Thermal Energy Storage in buildings, by constructing storage tanks to store chilled water during the off-peak tariff period, and using the stored chilled water to meet the peak-time cooling demand. The technical potential for savings that can be obtained through applying this technology in Sri Lankan context is analyzed, and the potential saving that can be achieved in the General Purpose and Hotel category customer group is calculated. DSM projects should ideally be a win-win option to the economy, the utility and the customer. The potential benefits of thermal energy storage, to the three parties expected to benefit are separately analyzed in this study. The results of the thesis is that Chilled Water Storage technology is a viable DSM project in Sri Lanka. It is the responsibility of the Utility to actively market it to its customer base and motivate them to participate in the project. This also requires the utility intervention to make this project more attractive to its customers through providing part of the investment cost. The effect of the customer payback period is also studied.