KATHMANDU UNIVERSITY

Dhulikhel, Kavre

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL & GEOMATICS ENGINEERING

ASSIGNMENT REPORT

SUBMITTED BY:
GROUP-7
Hiranya Jeet Malla (45)
Dipendra Paneru (46)
Sushant Poudel (48)
Santoshi Raut (49)
Bijesh Sah(50)
Anish Sapkota(51)

Date of submission: 2017-05-10

Load factor:-Load factor may be defined as the ratio of actual energy consumed in any duration
of time to the peak demand assumed to continue during that period. Load factor is also defined as
the mean load to the peak load where mean and peak load can be determined by plotting the load
curve. Daily, weekly, monthly or yearly load factors may be calculated from the mode of
variation of load.

Load factor = (actual energy consumed during 24hours/maximum demand *24 hours)

Load factor is always less than or equal to one because maximum demand is always more than
the average demand.

Load factor is a measure of effective utilization load and distribution equipment i.e. higher the
load factor means better utilization of the transformer, line or cable.

Capacity factor/Power plant factor:-Capacity factor is a ratio of average output of plant for a
given period of time to the plant capacity or capacity factor is a ratio of the energy actually
produced by the plant for any given period to the energy it is capable of producing at its full
capacity for that period of time.

For example:-if a plant with a capacity 150kW where to produce 5,500,000kWh when operating
for 100 hours, its capacity would be

=5,500,000/(100,000*100)=0.55=55%

The capacity factor for a hydro electric plant generally varies between 0.25&0.75

The capacity factor would be identical to load factor if the peak load were equals to plant
capacity. Thus if the maximum load on the plant were 75,000kW, the load factor on the plant
would be=(5,500,000/(75,000*100))=0.733=73.3% as against a capacity factor of 55%.

Diversity factor:-Each consumer uses power for a variety of purposes and touches his maximum
demand at certain times. And not necessarily do the maximum demands of all consumers
coincide at a particular time. However, there is a period during which the combined consumption
of all consumers is maximum.

The ratio of sum of the maximum demands of the individual consumers and the simultaneous
maximum demand of all consumers during a particular time is known as “diversity factor”.
Diversity factor=sum of individual maximum demand/simultaneous maximum demand.

Since, the usage pattern of consumers is diverse, the numerator in above expression is greater
than the denominator with the result that diversity factor is more than unity.

Load curve:-The quantum of load used at various hour of day may vary depending upon the
requirements of consumption. At certain hour the day, the demand may reach the highest value,
termed as peak load which is defined as that part of load carried at intensity greater than 4/3
times the mean load intensity for that period.

If a curve is drawn between load as ordinate and times in hours as the abscissa for one day than
this curve is called a daily load curve. It could be drawn for different time periods-day; week,
month or year depending upon requirements of load analysis. Thus a load curve is a graph of
load consumption with respect to time and directly gives an indication of power used at any time.
Utilization factor-Utilization factor is a ratio of quantity of water actually utilized for power
production to that available in the river. If head is assumed to be constant, then utilization factor
would be equivalent to the ratio of power utilization to that available. The value of utilization
factor varies from 0.4-0.9 for a hydel plant depending upon the plant capacity, load factor and
storage.

It can be noticed that if the load factor is very high and there is full pondage at the pant the
utilization factor may become as high as 1.00,where as the capacity factor can only go up to
0.75.

Power factor-Power factor is measure of how effectively electrical energy is used by a facility.
A high power factor means more effective utilization. Improving efficiency of electrical
equipment may reduce energy consumption but may not necessarily improve power factor.
Utility company generates power as a product of voltage and ampere (VA=apparent power)but
charge the consumers on the basis of Watts(True power/Real power).

Power factor of an AC electrical power system is defined as the ratio of the real power flowing to
the load to the apparent power in the circuit i.e.

Power factor=real power/apparent power

Which is a dimensionless number 0-1.The angle between the real power and apparent power is
called the power factor angle or the phase angle between current and voltage.

System capacity be increased and losses reduced by adding capacitors or kVAR generators to the
system.

In AC, power is said to be used most efficiently when current is aligned with voltage, but doesn’t
happen practically as electric induction motors, CFL, welding sets, etc. tend to draw the current
with a delay, misaligning with the voltage.
Load duration curve:-The study of variation of load demand various factor like load factor,
capacity factor etc. for a particular duration is done with the help of daily, weekly or monthly
load curves. however, for still longer durations, say annual, it becomes cumbersome to plot daily
load curves and utilize them for various calculation. Complexity increases on account of
variation of daily load curves for different seasons and variation for plots due to varying demand
etc.

Annual load duration curve is constructed in a much convenient way by arranging the various
demands of load, as seen from the daily load curves, in decreasing order along with the time
during which they occurred. if a plot of loads and percentage of time during which these loads
occurred is prepared, than this would be a load duration curve, the area of load duration curve
any duration would be same as that of a load curve for the same period of time. the area under
the curve represents the total energy produced for that duration.
Availability factor:- The availability factor of a power plant is the amount of time that it is able
to produce electricity over a certain period, divided by the amount of the time in the period.
Occasions where only partial capacity is available may or may not be deducted. Where they are
deducted, the metric is titled equivalent availability factor (EAF). The availability factor should
not be confused with the capacity factor. The capacity factor for a given period can never exceed
the availability factor for the same period. The difference arises when the plant is run at less than
full capacity, in which case the capacity factor is less than the availability factor.

The availability of a power plant varies greatly depending on the type of fuel, the design of the
plant and how the plant is operated. Everything else being equal, plants that are run less
frequently have higher availability factors because they require less maintenance and because
more inspections and maintenance can be scheduled during idle time. Most thermal power
stations, such as coal, geothermal and nuclear power plants, have availability factors between
70% and 90%. Newer plants tend to have significantly higher availability factors, but preventive
maintenance is as important as improvements in design and technology. Gas turbines have
relatively high availability factors, ranging from 80% to 99%.
Demand factor:- The word “demand” itself says the meaning of Demand Factor. The ratio of
the maximum coincident demand of a system, or part of a system, to the total connected load of
the system.

Demand Factor = Maximum demand / Total connected load.

For example, an over sized motor 20 kW drives a constant 15 kW load whenever it is on. The
motor demand factor is then 15/20 =0.75= 75 %.

Demand Factor is express as a percentage (%) or in a ratio (less than 1).

Demand factor is always < =1.

Demand Factor is always change with the time to time or hours to hours of use and it will not
constant.

The connected load is always known so it will be easy to calculate the maximum demand if the
demand factor for a certain supply is known at different time intervals and seasons.

The lower the demand factor, the less system capacity required to serve the connected load.
REFRENCES

Baral, S. (2012).Fundamentals of Hydropower Engineering. Kathmandu: Engineering and

Educational Services Pvt. Ltd.
M.M. Dandekar, K.N. Sharma (…) Water Power Engineering-Vikas Publishing House PVT
LTD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Availability_factor

https://electricalnotes.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/demand-factor-diversity-factor-utilization-
factor-load-factor/