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

Abstract

Today with the developments in 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). Several customer categories in Sri Lanka were studied in order to identify the potential DSM options that can be implemented. The selected option was Chilled Water Storage (CWS) in buildings, by constructing storage tanks to store chilled water during the off-peak period, and using the stored chilled water to meet the peak-time cooling demand. The technical potential for savings that can be obtained through 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.