Basis for reduction of energy losses in secondary substations

Umeå Energi are working towards a goal, that in the year of 2018, they will be completely climate neutral. As a part of this, one target is to reduce their grid losses by 4 % of the 2012 level, which corresponds to an overall reduction of the grid losses of just over 1.7 GWh. In many residential areas, the distribution grid is designed and rated for electric heating as the heating in the houses. As many of the houses later has been converted to other types of heating, their electricity use has decreased and the total power output from many of the secondary substations has decreased significantly. Because of this, many of these stations today are well oversized, which in turn means that the energy losses in these stations are unnecessarily high. In this degree project, 25 secondary substations have been studied, all located in residential areas in and around central Umeå. All of the stations have an installed capacity of 1600 kVA, evenly distributed over two transformers, with 800 kVA each. For each station the annual energy losses has been calculated, and based on economy and environmental factors, various actions has been presented and recommended. The actions are either direct, which means they only require that transformers are turned off during all or part of the year, or long-term, which means they require investments. The recommended direct actions for these 25 stations, will lead to a potential energy loss reduction of 188 MWh per year, which corresponds to 70 000 SEK or 118 tons of carbon dioxide emission. This represents approximately 11 % of the total target in energy loss reduction and can be done immediately, with no need for investments. For long-term actions a possible 424 MWh can be reduced, which would represent about 25 % of the target, although that would require an investment of 5.12 million SEK