Rural Electrification Planning

In this article we will learn about the Rural electrification planning . We will discuss in detail about the Components of rural electrification planning.From this article we study about the village electrification, Load dovelopment ,Pum set energization ,System improvement planning.

Rural Electrification Planning

Rural Electrification programme is mainly funded by Rural electrification Corporation of India since 1969 for all round development of village life, agriculture and industries.

Rural Electrification Planning
Rural Electrification Planning

Rural Electrification Planning

  1. Rural electrification concerns the supply of electricity to low density areas of villages. It is traditionally achieved in two ways by the installation of generators independent of the grid, i.e., diesel or micro-hydel or wind generation etc., directly at the consumption site (village, farm, small industry, dispersed dwelling),  or by the extension of the interconnected electrical grid. This latter technique accounts for 80 percent of rural electricity distribution in the world and about 98 percent in India. It is also main point of rural electrification planning.
  2. For electricity distribution. Rural areas are distinguished from urbanized areas by some fundamental aspects like sites to be electrified are often several kilometers from the existing (H.T.) medium voltage (MV) network, there is lower population density and electric consumption is much lower than the average urban consumption. 
  3. The above characteristics of rural electrification result in an increase in capital costs of rural projects in comparison with urban projects because the great distance of sites to be electrified entails the installation of MV lines from the grid over sometimes significant distances. (2 to 3 km on an average in India).
  4. The low population density in comparison with urban sites requires to installation of longer low voltage (LV) lines per consumer. As a rule of thumb, stability problems limit extensions of grid to a distance in km of not more than double the line voltage in kV.
  5. The rural electrification programme has a useful contribution to the agricultural production, especially by the energization of pump sets for irrigation. However, due to non-availability of reliable power supply in rural area, the agro-based industries did not grow and this lead to migration of rural population to urban area.
  6. The rural power system has long lines, low voltage, low power factor, overloaded transformers causing damage to the to the costly equipment and higher transmission and distribution losses. The consumers do not install capacitors in their premise to increase power factor and have no inclination of participate in the energy conservation. These are some steps of Rural electrification planning.

Components of Rural Electrification Planning

  • Village Electrification

At present millions of villages have been electrified out of 0.579 million villages which constitute about 86 percent in the country village is deemed to be electrified even if a single connection is given in the revenue boundary of the village. It is main componenets of rural electrification planning.

  • Pump Set Energization

This is a major scheme of rural electrification Corporation of India, NABARD and Commercial banks and many rural electrification cooperatives have provided funds in equal ratio for pump sets energization.

  • Load Development

The use of electricity for domestic and other non-farm activities is still limited and the creation of HT/LT network in the rural areas for industrial development is yet to take place.

  • System improvement Planning

The existing system has expanded at a fast rate and not strengthened, therefore, making the overall system inadequate. Continuous system improvement needs to be planned as part of the work culture.

  • Insulated Aerial Cable System

Insulated overhead distribution system has the ability to reduce the environmental impact on overhead system both for new work in difficult areas and retrofitting of existing bare system. High voltage ABC (Aerial Bunched Cable) system is used in many countries. Covered conductor system provides an improved open wire system, which can be less expensive than HV ABC. Two versions of power conductors, namely covered conductor (CC) and covered conductor thick (CCT) are now used.

Hence these are rural electrification planning . From this article we have studied about the components of rural electrification planning like village  electrification, system improvement planning, insulated aerial cable system,pump set energization , load dovelopment etc.