February 2013|Online electrical engineering & Electrical Interview Questions

Sunday, February 17, 2013

CAN WE MONITOR THE CUSTOMER LOADS FROM SUBSTATION

Here is the new question, can we monitor the customer loads from substation ? To answer the question first we need to know the purpose of Substation.After generating power,we transfer using Transmission & Distribution networks at very high voltages in order to reduce the power loss .

The transmitted power needs to be delivered to the customers at 230 V/400 V based on whether the consumer is domestic or industry. So the distribution substation steps down the transmitted power from 33 KV to 11 KV and is further stepped down by the transformers to supply the customers.So basically the substations steps down/steps up the power for distribution and it records the readings of power flow between the substations in the transmission networks.

Why do we install meters at the consumers place? To know the actual power consumption with minor tolerances level we install meters at the consumer place.If we measure it at the substation, Who is going to account for the losses made during transmission and how will you know which consumer has consumed how much power? So the government takes all these losses and generation cost and other factors into consideration and fixes the rate for unit consumed for different consumers.