Load management at the Distribution Transformer

During peak irrigation season (winter / Rabi) agricultural distribution transformers across the state get overloaded for a few weeks leading to transformer failure and other power quality problems. Load management involves scheduling farmers' irrigation requirements to avoid overloading.

Farmers create a schedule in groups considering irrigation requirements, and field conditions such as the day-night supply of electricity, water transfers from borewell to openwell, and prioritising critical irrigations. An app has been developed to simplify the generation of irrigation schedules. In fact, it has been observed that farmers sometimes use a crude and suboptimal approach where one of two branches of the network operates on alternate days.

A video on the initiative:

The load management initiative has been successfully implemented at 11 locations across Vidarbha and Marathwada. The app is currently available under the PoCRA scheme of the Department of Agriculture, Government of Maharashtra.