Saudi Electric Company Research Articles

An Experimental Demonstration of the Effective Application of Thermal Energy Storage in a Particle-Based CSP System

Tests were performed at the particle-based CSP test facility at King Saud University to demonstrate a viable solution to overcome the limitations of using molten salt as a working medium in power plants. The KSU facility is composed of a heliostat field, particle heating receiver (PHR) at the top of a tower, thermal energy storage (TES) bin, a particle-to-working fluid heat exchanger (PWFHX), power cycle (microturbine), and a particle lift. During pre-commissioning, a substantial portion of the collected solar energy was lost during particle flow through the TES bin. The entrained air is shown to be the primary cause of such heat loss. The results show that the particle temperature at the PHR outlet can reach 720 °C after mitigating the entrained air issue. Additionally, during on-sun testing, a higher temperature of the air exiting the PWFHX than that of the air entering is observed, which indicates the effective solar contribution. Half-hour plant operation through stored energy was demonstrated after heliostat defocusing. Lastly, a sealable TES bin configuration for 1.3 MWe pre-commercial demonstration unit to be built in Saudi Arabia by Saudi Electric Company (SEC) is presented. This design modification has addressed the heat loss, pressure build-up, and contamination issues during TES charging.

Machine Learning Empowered Electricity Consumption Prediction

Electricity, being the most efficient secondary energy, contributes for a larger proportion of overall energy usage. Due to a lack of storage for energy resources, over supply will result in energy dissipation and substantial investment waste. Accurate electricity consumption prediction is vital because it allows for the preparation of potential power generation systems to satisfy the growing demands for electrical energy as well as: smart distributed grids, assessing the degree of socioeconomic growth, distributed system design, tariff plans, demand-side management, power generation planning, and providing electricity supply stability by balancing the amount of electricity produced and consumed. This paper proposes a medium-term prediction model that can predict electricity consumption for a given location in Saudi Arabia. Hence, this study implemented a standalone Artificial Neural Network (ANN) model and bagging ensemble for predicting total monthly electricity consumption in 18 locations across Saudi Arabia. The dataset used in this research is gathered exclusively from the Saudi Electric Company. The pre-processing phase included normalizing the data using min-max method and mapping the cyclical attribute to its sine and cosine facets. The number of neurons and learning rate of the standalone model were optimized using hyperparameter tuning. Finally, the standalone model was tested against the bagging ensemble using the optimized ANN. The bagging ensemble with an optimized ANN as the chosen classifier outperformed the standalone ANN model. The results for the proposed model produced 0.9116 Correlation Coefficient (CC), 0.2836 Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE), 0.4578, Root Mean Squared Percentage Error (RMSPE), 0.0298 MAE, and 0.069 Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE), respectively.

Performance Related Pay System: How Does It Affect the Performance of the Employees?

Performance-based pay system acknowledges employee dedication and nurtures a high- performance culture which is important for both short-term and long-term organizational success (Allen, Whittaker, & Sutton, 2017). In the past, the government had a great say in employee salary and remuneration. Wages were negotiated and influenced by government regulation (Hegewisch & Filella, 2017). In those days, productivity and profit played no significant role in influencing pay increase. However, things have changed and productivity significantly influences pay increase and job promotion. This study was conducted on two dominating Saudi Arabian companies: Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Saudi Electric Company (SEC), to investigate the impact of PRP on the performance of the employees in the two industries. The research was conducted on 141 employees in both companies (n=141). The sample was comprised of 131 departmental employees and 10 supervisors. The investigation used a mixed methodology approach where both interviews and questionnaires were applied in the collection of data and SPSS was used to test the main hypothesis. Additionally, various credible sources were used in collecting information on studies conducted previously on PRP by other researchers. The results collected during this study proved that PRP has minimal impact on the performance of the employees, but it works effectively as an employee control system; the system acts as a motivational system but issues like favoritism, lack of team work and clear definition of performance standards prevent the system from being effective. The main limitation of the study, was the time constraint that prevented more respondents from being interviewed. Hence, the interpretation of the results should not be over generalized. Keywords : Pay related performance, compensation, motivation, incentives, benefits, culture DOI : 10.7176/EJBM/12-3-14 Publication date: January 31 st 2020

Organizational Change and Change Readiness: Employees’ Attitudes during Times of Saudi Electric Organizational Shift

The study aimed to assess the Organizational Change and Change Readiness in Saudi Electric Company: Employees attitude during time of Company Organizational Shift. Specifically, the study answered the level of implementation of change management at Saudi Electric Company as perceived by the respondents in terms of communication, employee Involvement, employee Training and stress Management. Also, the study answered the Level of Effectiveness of change management at Saudi Electric Company as perceived by the respondents in terms of employee motivation, decision making and employee performance. This study further focused on the relationship between status and level of effectiveness of implementation of change management at Saudi Electric Company. The study also analyzed the employee attitude and readiness for change management in the organization. According to the limitation of this study are shortage of time and shortage of available data, moreover the result of this study is related to Saudi Electric Co in Saudi Arabia only, so it may not fit with all other organizations that may have different in size and different in nature of business.

Proposed Measures to Mitigate Energy Interruptions in Residential Sector

This study investigates and analyzes the electric energy interruptions impact upon the residential sector in Riyadh city, the capital of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) resulting from severe power outages. The study results show that this sector which constitutes about 54% of the Saudi Electric Company in the Central Operating Area (SEC-COA) will suffer enormous tangible and intangible losses should occur in specific times, seasons and last for longer durations. The results obtained for the costs of these energy interruptions reveal a time-dependent non-linear outage cost variation. In order to reduce these energy interruptions and hence mitigate their adverse effects and consequences, the study proposes proper practical measures and solutions without compromising the consumers’ needs and convenience.

Computation of Lightning Impulse Backflashover Outages Rates on High Voltage Transmission Lines

Lightning impulse has been one of the important problems for insulation design of power systems and it is still the main cause of outages of transmission and distribution lines. The lightning return‐stroke current and the charge delivered by the stroke are the most important parameters to assess the severity of lightning strokes to power lines and apparatus. This paper presents the effects of many tower, ground parameters on the backfloshover voltage level. Also demonstrate the results used to determine the lightning backflashovers level on 230KV transmission lines utilized by Saudi Electric Company (SEC) in Saudi Arabia, using two well known approaches CIGRE, and the simplified method. The studies include lightning flashovers, backflash analysis, as dependent on the tower design parameters which is considered the main parameters that reduce the rate of lightning bachflashovers in the transmission lines. The study results can be applied to reduce the number lightning flashovers and therefore reduce the transmission lines

Technical and Economical Merits of Power Systems Interconnection

This work aims at exploring the effects of the interconnection between isolated electric power systems upon some important aspects such as enhancing reliability levels along with reducing installation and operation costs. To discern the advantages associated with this study, the developed methodology has been applied to three existing power systems in the northern region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia presently within the concession domain of the Saudi Electric Company (SEC). These systems have been established to meet the present loads and to withstand future electrical demands for a period of time before additional generation and transmission reinforcements are needed. In this work, reliability measures have been utilized to determine the period that these systems can fulfill the present and future loads without affecting the reliability levels and the threshold that an additional capacity should be added to maintain those required reliability levels. In application to the reliability criteria, technical, operational and economic advantages can be realized, i.e., higher reliability levels and lower installation and operation costs after the proposed interconnection between these selected isolated power systems take place.

Potential Use of Communications and Project Management Systems in Remote Construction Projects: The Case of Saudi Electric Company

Remote projects have their unique problems that are caused mainly by the remoteness of the project itself thus the loose control over management. This is due to a number of reasons such as lack of human resources and infrastructure. Research studies that were undertaken worldwide regarding this issuehas highlighted few unique management problems. The aim of this paper is to investigate how far the IT tools would help in managing remote construction projects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Due to the lack of previous research regarding remote projects within the Gulf region and the KSA, a pilot study was conducted in 2009 to define and test the wording of questions that are part of the main survey. The main survey was undertaken on Saudi Electric Company (SEC). The study found that IT systems and tools have the potential but this potential is hindered by a number of technical, managerial, staff factors. Therefore, successful application of IT systems would require changes to the present management settings at various levels. This would ensure that the SEC is capable of achieving the full benefit from using these advanced systems.

A review of inlet air-cooling technologies for enhancing the performance of combustion turbines in Saudi Arabia

Abstract Peak demand for electric power in Saudi Arabia occurs during the middle of the day in summer and is almost double the off-peak demand. The demand profile is ill-matched to the performance profile of combustion turbines as their power output decreases with increased inlet-air temperature. Approximately 42% of the Saudi Electric Company’s (SEC) annual energy sales are generated by combustion turbines, yet the turbines experience a 24% decrease in system capacity during the summer due to ambient air temperatures up to 50 °C. Methods of increasing the energy contribution of existing plant by changing their performance profiles through inlet air cooling could make a substantial contribution to the additional 35 GW in peak demand capacity required by 2023. An extensive review of the various combustion turbine inlet cooling technology (CTIAC) options open to SEC has been made, and their key benefits and drawbacks in relation to the environmental conditions and generational requirements of Saudi Arabia have been identified.

Outages Cost Estimation for Residential Sector

This paper investigates and analyzes the effects of electric service interruptions resulting from severe power outages. The residential sector in the city of Riyadh has been selected as a practical case to conduct this study. It has been found that this sector ? which constitutes about 70% of the Saudi Electric Company in the central region (SECO) energy consumers ? will suffer tangible and intangible losses should outages occur in specific times, seasons and last for long durations