IT Based Energy Management through Demand Side in the Industrial Sector

Every year, the demand of electricity is increasing by 6-8 per cent, while production is not increasing in the same ratio. Due to this reason, the gap between demand and supply is constantly increasing. To reduce this gap, there are two alternative ways: one is to generate more electricity, which requires huge investment and second is to conserve the electricity from utility side that is Demand side. The generation capacity in our country is around 1,05,000 MW, but due to inefficiency of power system, lack of advanced meters at various stages viz, generation, transmission and distribution, about 40 percent of energy is wasted. Therefore, there is urgent need to improve the efficiency of the power system from generating point to consumer end to reduce this wastage of energy. Simultaneously, it is required to give an attention for conservation of energy at all levels, otherwise our country may lag behind. The Demand Side Management is a strong tool for Energy Management and Conservation in industries. For effective energy management and conservation, IT based Energy Auditing is employed, where-in computers are used for data storage and display. By connecting clamp-on meters with computers, it is possible to have data management, network communication, remote monitoring, report formats, harmonics data analysis etc. This paper explains how conservation and management of electrical energy can be made possible by using computers and advanced metering technologies in industrial sector.