The Role of Demand Side Management for Efficient Energy Management in Distribution Systems: A Case Study

Abstract

The rate of growth of unserved load in the Nigerian power systems currently is as a result of the ever-growing gap created between the energy demand and available power supply, which is one of the major causes of frequent power interruptions in the network. Thus, stabilizing the network, efficient energy management is required on the consumers’ side to equalize the available power supply with the ever-growing energy demand by the consumers; of which demand side management (DSM) is a veritable tool which can be deployed to match the ever-growing energy demand with the available power supply. Consequently, this paper presents the role of DSM for efficient energy management in the distribution system as a case study in the Nigerian power systems. The Ugbowo distribution network was used as a model; the shifting and switching techniques were adopted as a way of managing the ever-growing load demand by consumers in the network with the available power supply. The shifting technique was used as a direct load control (DLC) method in the network to shift the deferrable loads from peak period to off-peak or intermediate period and all these were carried out during the peak period to flatten the load spikes curve to an objective load curve in the network. The results showed that the techniques can match the available power supply with the ever-growing energy demand in the network, thereby improving the availability of the feeders and its associated power transformers in the system.