Assessing the sufficiency of the line design criteria as applied to the umeme medium voltage network.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to carry out an assessment on the sufficiency of the line design criteria as applied to the Umeme medium voltage (MV)network using PLS-CADD software. In Umeme design criteria, challenges are encountered due to not putting into consideration the weather variations thus increasing the number of faults on their networks. We researched and came up with a solution which could help by developing a line design criteria and the framework used was data collection from Uganda National Meteorological Society(UNMA) about the operating condition of different places, performance data of the different networks from UMEME which we used to obtain different tension and sag values. Tororo, kitgum and Mbarara were considered as our case study and the following cases were looked at. Case 1: Developing a line criteria with PLS CADD which considers weather parameters thus eliminating these faults due to poor tensioning thus increasing on the network reliability. Case 2: Chosen and simulated one feeder in every three areas considering all causes of faults. Case3: Carried out simulations without considering those faults due to poor tensioning. Also carried out simulations in DIGSILENT in order to test for reliability with the help of reliability indices (SAIFI and SAIDI) with the above cases.