Feeder Separation

Many states in India are agricultural states with 70% rural population, and inadequate power supply in rural areas is one of the major obstacles affecting the economic growth and development. At present, rural power feeders feed mixed agriculture and domestic/village loads approximately for 8-10 hours. Agricultural pumps are provided with a three-phase supply for 6-8 hours. During the rest of the period, single-phase supply on the HV line is made available, intended for use in households and small businesses. Farmers use phase splitters and run their water pumps for extended hours resulting in power interruptions, abnormal loading of feeders and failures of distribution transformers. The currently inefficient system results in households not getting power round the clock. This leads to unbalanced loading of transformers and defeats the purpose of load shedding. Moreover, the current system of common supply to households and water pumps makes it difficult to locate and reduce commercial losses. The Government of various states has undertaken a feeder separation program to resolve these issues.
As the Government policy of providing free or concessionary rates on using electricity for water pumping would continue, the DISCOMs require a long-term solution, which satisfies five objectives:

1. Improvement in quality and reliability of power supply
2. Prevention of theft/direct hooking from LT network catering to non-agricultural load
3. Reduction in technical and commercial losses
4. Reduction in equipment/plant failures
5. Flexible load management for DISCOMs

Keeping the parameters set out by the Government, Bajaj carried out certain activities while executing projects. The key aspect of the feeder separation program is that it separates the irrigation and residential/commercial loads in rural areas  so as to adopt measures to check pilferage of electricity.

The main project activities include:

1. Erection of 11 kV additional bays along with VCB, control relay panel
2. Laying of 11 kV lines on PCC poles with (rabbit) AAA conductor
3. Installation of 11/0.433 kV distribution transformers
4. HVDS (Conversion of existing LT to HT line)
5. Replacement of bare conductors of LT lines by AB cables
6. Provision of meters for un-metered consumers
7. GIS-based consumer indexing and asset mapping

Few notable projects include Madhya Pradesh Madhya Kshetra Vidyut Vitran Company Limited - FSP – Guna, Raisen, Hoshangabad and Gwalior; Madhya Pradesh Poorva Kshetra Vidyut Vitran Company Limited / FSP- Katni, Rewa and other projects.