The impact of adoption of power factor correction technology on electricity peak demand in Uganda

Abstract

Enhancing energy efficiency is a global priority (International Energy Agency (IEA) 2013; Linares and Labandeira 2010;Gillingham et al. 2009). At the production firm level, the benefits of energy efficiency include reduction in resource use, improved production and capacity utilization, and less operation and maintenance costs, which lead to improved productivity and competitiveness (International Energy Agency (IEA) 2013;Ryan and Campbell 2012;Worrell et al. 2003). Indeed, improvements in energy efficiency in manufacturing plants lead to reduced demand for energy and hence releasing the excess demand to other potential users (Ryan and Campbell 2012). The excess energy demand especially at peak time of use zones attracts maximum demand charges from utilities (Schneider Electric 2008), in a two-or three-part tariff structure, which includes energy and demand components.Electricity shortages are common in many countries in Sub Saharan Africa (Eberhard and Shkaratan 2012;Eberhard et al. 2008). More recently, in 2006, Uganda experienced a deficit in electricity supply owing to a prolonged drought, delayed development of the Abstract This paper examines the impact of adoption of power factor correction technology on electricity peak demand in Uganda. Specifically, the paper examines the variability of peak electricity demand in the periods before and after the implementation of power factor improvement schemes and assesses the likely impact of power factor improvement schemes on peak demand. Results suggest that power factor correction technology implemented among industries and commercial enterprises increased the power factor in these industries from an average of 0.68 to 0.95 and saved up to 8.04 MVA of demand as at the end of 2014. Results further indicate that the implementation of the power factor correction scheme has reduced the growth rate and abated the variability of both total maximum/peak demand and domestic peak demand. Finally, with the implementation of power factor correction scheme, there is a noticeable reduction in electricity consumption at peak time of use (TOU) and growth in consumption of electricity at nonpeak time TOU, which was not the case before the implementation of the scheme. Open Access© 2016 Okoboi and Mawejje. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

Electricity consumption and sectoral output in Uganda: an empirical investigation

“…For two decades, Uganda's growth has been supported by the low energy-intensive services sector (Hausmann et al 2014). Secondly owing to the large energy deficits in the country, the large manufacturing plants received World Bank support to implement power factor correction technologies which helped to improve energy efficiency and therefore reduced peak electricity demand (Okoboi and Mawejje 2016;World Bank 2012).…”

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