Measurement and verification of irrigation pumping DSM projects: application of novel methodology designs
Abstract
In South Africa the agricultural sector is a significant
energy user, with irrigation pumping being the single
biggest electricity-demanding farming activity.
The agricultural and commercial sectors contribute
6.5% to annual South African electricity sales. Since
2004, Eskom demand side management (DSM)
programmes actively engaged farmers to reduce
peak period power usage. Farmers with higher
power usage were also assisted to move from
Landrate tariff structure to Ruraflex in order to
incentivise away from peak-period power use. As
part of the DSM programme, a number of large
evening peak-load-shifting irrigation projects were
implemented. Independent measurement and verification
(M&V) assessments were made to establish
attained savings over the contracted project life. The
M&V of DSM projects normally have problems that
complicate project assessments, but even taking this
into account, the M&V team experienced exceptional
difficulties and cumbersome M&V methodology
challenges with certain irrigation projects. Normal
baseline development methods were ineffective and
novel M&V methods needed to be devised and
developed. This paper explains the normal M&V
methodology used for typical DSM projects and
how it is applied. It gives guidance on baseline
metering equipment, sampling and metering point
selection. Further it demonstrates project specific
issues and service level adjustment (SLA) anomalies
that render normal M&V methodologies ineffective.
It shows novel and alternative baseline development
and SLA methods that were incorporated
on DSM projects to accurately quantify project
impacts
URI
http://hdl.handle.net/10394/24024https://journals.assaf.org.za/jesa/article/view/1647
https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3051/2016/v27i4a1647
Collections
- Faculty of Engineering [1129]