Overview
Agriculture is the backbone of Indian economy. Electrical energy is the input for irrigation system as pump-sets are used for watering the fields . To enhance the agricultural outcome of the country, the Indian government provides electricity at subsidized rates even in some cases for free. The subsidy is either covered by other high tariff consumers or granted from state government called as direct subsidy. This supply is generally unmetered and it has played a key role in the growth of groundwater irrigation and agricultural production in our country since Green Revolution.
Problem Statement
The electricity supplied is unmetered, or inadequately measured. These subsidies are implemented in many states of India, amongst these states almost all agricultural connections in Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh are unmetered.
DISCOMs have been undergoing massive financial losses for a long period of time. Due to unmetered supply of electricity it becomes difficult to trace down the usage and billing of electricity. This has led to negative impacts of subsidized electricity not only to the DISCOMs but also to the state government cross subsidizing the consumers.
Load under these schemes are sanctioned by a preliminary estimation, this data is generally inadequate and unreliable, which leads to inaccurate estimation. It is also necessary that the Site engineers educate the farmers to use only the sanctioned amount of electricity and do not consume excess amount which ultimately acts as a burden on the electricity supplier. The maximum power consuming loads are irrigation pump-sets, which needs efficient monitoring. To mitigate all this, on-site measurement of connected loads is essential.
Solution
- Rishabh’s RISH Clamp Power 1000A/400A AC/DC is equipped with the feature of measuring the Horsepower of these pump-sets
- When connected to the pump-set the Clamp meter, generally capable of monitoring only current can now measure the HP rating of the equipment with the help of power clamp meter
- The government provides such clamp meters to their site engineers to implement a better method of estimation of electricity consumption
- Clamp meters are used to measure the benchmark consumption of that capacity, benchmark value can then be multiplied with number of equipment to arrive at an approximate consumption
- The HP ratings of these equipment are logged and used to understand as well as cross validate that the amount of electricity supplied has been utilized effectively
HP to kW conversion : 1 Mechanical Horsepower = 0.7457 kilowatts
Benefits
- Not only measures current upto 1000A accurately but can also measure HP directly
- Beneficial for on-site monitoring using hand held device
- Unique feature available in clamp meters
- Simplified DISCOMs methodology to estimate electricity consumption of subsidized agricultural loads
