Estimated energy consumption and billing modelling using power availability recorder

Abstract

Accurate estimation and billing of unmetered facilities and homes by the energy providers in Nigeria has been a serious nightmare to the rural and other consumers. The unjust billing due to inaccurate and wrong estimations have resulted to rancor, facilities damage and economic hardship among the people due to poor equipment and unreliable consumption data. This research work presents accurate energy consumption and billing model using power availability recorder (PAR) which keeps track of how long electricity lasts in a building or facility at discrete time scale. Two residential buildings situated at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and one facility each in two chosen communities in Nsukka, were used as commercial and residential electricity consumers respectively for this study. The readings from the PAR were obtained in discrete scale (mini-seconds), and were later converted to seconds and hours. Similarly, the readings from the Energy Consumption meter were taken in kWh. These daily results taken simultaneously at 6 am and 6 pm were used to calculate the Availability Factor (AF), Load Use Factor (LUF) and Average Load (AL) in kW. With PAR as energy meter in significant number of houses within the chosen communities, AF, LUF, and AL for different facilities in the community were obtained and used for the energy billing model development. A relationship, which depends on availability and load use factor, has been suggested in this study with a proportionality constant value of 14.78 kWh/day/customer for use in obtaining better estimates of the bills chargeable to unmetered customers. This will control the black-out relay period usually encountered by consumers instead of the grossly unjust estimated bills currently being used by Nigeria's electricity distribution companies.