Ibrahim Kasita
4 November 2009
Kampala — UMEME has promised to provide interest free funding for power factor correction in its efforts to lower power bills and reduce electricity losses.
The cost of power factor correction equipment is between 3,000 and 14,000 euros depending on the voltage.
Charlotte Kemigyisha, the communication head, said the improved power factor will reduce power consumption and improve quality of power supply.
"Obtaining an improved power factor benefits consumers financially in the form of lower utility fees, and also in efficiency through increased system capacity and reduced system losses," she said.
"Specific benefits include reduced non-productive loading on the system, increased system capacity and minimised or deferred investments in new generation and transmission lines energy recovered and returned to the economy."
What is power factor?
- This is the ratio of true power or watts to apparent power. The power that you use in your house, office or factory is composed of two different types; the real or active power and the reactive power.
The active power is the power that performs useful work while the reactive power is the power that magnetic equipment needs to produce magnetic flux forming what is called apparent power.
In an electric power system, a load with low power factor draws more current than a load with a high power factor for the same amount of useful power transferred.
These higher currents increase the energy lost in the distribution system resulting in wasted energy and potentially higher costs to customers where there is a low power factor.
Effects of low power factor
- Electricity users experience increased load to generators, transformers and conductor.
Also there are increased investments required in the generation, distribution and distribution network, increased power losses reducing efficiency and reliability.
Causes of low power factor
- There are several causes of low power factor linked predominantly to the major portion of power consumed in industrial and commercial operations. These may include industrial loads, compressors and welding machines. Industrial loads absorb reactive power from the system and, therefore, a need to for reactive power compensation.
How can consumers improve their power factor?
- Consumers can increase their power factor by installing capacitors which decrease the magnitude of reactive power thereby increasing the power factor.
Also minimising the operation of lightly loaded motors, avoiding the operations of equipment that are above its rated voltage and replacing standard motors as they burn out with more energy efficient motors.
Power factor education workshops
- Kemigyisha said UMEME has currently embarked on a customer sensitisation programme on the need to improve their power factor.
"Issues addressed are that a tariff applicaton has been lodged with the Electricity Regulatory Authority (ERA) for large power users that will benefit those customers with good power factor and penalize those with poor power factor," she said.
"The time to act is now to avoid penalties when the new tariff is approved."
Pink metering card
- UMEME has also introduced the pink "metering card" in a bid to empower electricity users to take charge of their meter reading.
The card, which the users can find in their meter box, allows them to cross-check accuracy of the meter reading.
"In case we are unable to take the reading in a given month, the customer is encouraged to take the reading, record it in the card and inform us. The cards can also be picked up at any of our customer service centres," Kemigyisha said.
The firm recently launched a $5m digital monitoring system, which will see improvement in electricity distribution network efficiency.
"We would like to bring these losses down to 28% by the first quarter of 2010," Kemigyisha said.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 New Vision. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
