End load shedding in Pakistan by smart metering !

By: Gohar Date: 3 June 2012

In Pakistan everyone is crying about heavy load shedding now days. We know that this corrupt and incapable government can’t end load shedding in Pakistan. We produce on average 5-6 thousand MW less than total requirement of country.

But question arises, what will happen if, God willing, some good and capable government take power in Pakistan. Still in that case we will face load shedding. Because our economy will start growing and requirement of electricity will increase with same proportion. In that case, it is must that we should have some good load balancing mechanism in major cities of Pakistan.

Currently distribution companies black off different areas to balance power supply and demand. Completely blacking off is not a good option in itself. It creates an environment in which people use UPS and generators. Hundred and thousand of UPS are functional in Pakistan, which are a great burden on power. UPS work in a two process conversion; they convert AC electricity to DC and vice versa. Output is always less in conversion than input. So these two conversions is a loss of electricity. On the other hand small generator’s efficiency is very less which also a loss of energy.

In modern world smart metering has become very easy and cheap, because of convergence of technologies. We can easily connect load balancing device with currently installed meters. These load balancing devices can easily be controlled from a central control room via GSM network. With a single click of mouse a complete area can be restricted to 500/1000/2000 Watts per home. These devices don’t have any rocket science technology. They can be manufactured locally in RS. 1000-2000

The benefit of smart metering would be great. People won’t need UPS and generators any more, as no area will be completely powered off in cities. On one hand hundreds of thousand UPS and generators would be phased out, which will save a lot of power. On other hand distribution companies would be able to implement smart billing options in future like prepaid bill. Unfortunately in Pakistan we have talent and resources, but not the will in leadership to make these ideas a reality.

*To take email ID of writer mail at: whitengreen.com@gmail.com

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