AN IMPROVED LOAD SHEDDING SCHEDULING STRATEGY FOR SOLVING POWER SUPPLY DEFISIT

Abstract

When high electricity demand growth not matched by the growth in generating capacity, energy deficit problem cannot be avoided. Power outages of up to 6 hours per day are part of the power crisis experienced by electricity consumers in Sumatra. The utility has applied load shedding approach to tackle the problem, however, there are weaknesses on the current load shedding program. It is discovered that most of the power outage occurs randomly without any prior notice and sometime lasted for many hours. Load shedding program is not properly scheduled and not fairly distributed among all consumers. A proper scheduling program must have a clear periodic schedule, fixed outage hours, fairly distributed and alternated among consumers and most importantly solve energy deficit problem. This paper presented an improved load shedding scheduling strategy based on Round Robin method. The method is then illustrated and applied on actual daily load profile of Sumatra electrical system.