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  • What is the point of load shedding if people have inverters?

    Gurjap

    Member

    Updated: Oct 22, 2024
    Views: 1.2K
    During a recent power cut or "load shedding" when the temperatures was in the fifties, I was in the process of saying thanks to whoever invented and marketed the inverter, when I had a moment of epiphany.

    Say you use two fans and two bulbs for 24 hours a day, week in and week out. The Local Powercom decides the system is loaded, and decides to do a ten-hour powercut, so you buy an inverter in order to survive. Even if the inverter efficiency is a hundred percent, and suspending the thermodynamics laws, it does not consume any power of itself, it will keep your two fans and bulbs running the extra ten hours when the powercut happens to be.

    This means you have loaded the Powercom for a total of twenty four hours anyway. So what was the point of load shedding the first place??

    PS. My electrical engineering skills are lamentable, so if I have outraged your modesty by making an obvious mistake, please try to tell me patiently.
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  • Jeffrey Arulraj

    Member • May 26, 2013

    You actually loaded the power com only wen you charged the inverter

    When the power com sheds load your inverter steps in and it gives you power for 10 hours or so At that time the Power COM is not loaded by all the fans and AC that run in your house
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  • Gurjap

    Member • May 26, 2013

    I know, right? I mean, all the inverter did was to shift the load, while increasing it. How did Powercom benefit by that?
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  • Jeffrey Arulraj

    Member • May 26, 2013

    When the inverter turns on your house hold appliances are completely disconnected from the power com And that means the power com has really dropped a little weight here
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  • Gurjap

    Member • May 28, 2013

    Sure. But, as you pointed out, the inverter, when charging, loaded the Powercom. Therefore, the Powercom was loaded extra for the time the power was on, rather than consistently for 24 hours. So their idea of saving power by load shedding didn't work.

    See my point?
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  • Jeffrey Arulraj

    Member • May 28, 2013

    I get it now friend Once the battery is charged to nearly 90-95% of its power The charging of the battery stops and so the Power com is not actually loaded

    The amount of current drawn by the invertor is also not that drastic compared to your AC and other heavier loads

    Your answer is correct Power com is loaded when the inverter charges
    But once supply is terminated the power com is not.

    Another thing to mind is that power com is not over burdened to provide this additional load. But too many inverters in an area can be of some issues I think not sure

    Maybe #-Link-Snipped-# can help sort this out
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  • Anil Jain

    Member • May 28, 2013

    I can't talk in technical terms for electrical..

    However, simple reasons I can think of, a decent inverter battery charges in 2 hours, and gives power up to 10 hours. Also, when a consumer is on inverter, there are high chances that he would not use heavy consumption devices like AC, Fridge, Heater, Geysers and that would save some electricity.

    Also, If a survey is to be believed (anonymous), unfortunately in India, Power com makes money with only 60% of the home consumers that are legally using electricity. Remaining 40% is used by illegal means and during power-cut that saves some electricity load and money to Power com.

    -CB
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  • lal

    Member • May 28, 2013

    Well, if the powersystem consists of only two fans and two bulbs, the power company would see no gain with load shedding. The energy they thought could be saved by load shedding would already be used to charge the inverter batteries. In reality, if the efficiency is considered, it would have had to generate more energy than required without powercut.

    That is true only if the load is two fans and two bulbs. But it is not the normal case. As cb said, it is the heavy loads like refrigerator, ac et cetera that save much of the energy during load shedding. If there was no load shedding, these loads would have been kept energised by the consumers. There would have been more bulbs and fans that would be energised too. So definitely quite a lot of energy is saved there. And besides how many homes have an inverter.

    A 12V, 12Ah battery can supply 144Wh energy.
    Assuming 100% efficiency and battery would be drained completely.
    Total energy saved = (total energy that would have been consumed without load shedding for the load shedding interval) - 144Wh

    If normally a refrigerator will be kept on, a few more lights will be enrgised and more ceiling fans will be running,
    total energy that would have been consumed without load shedding for the load shedding interval = power rating of each appliance x load shedding period.
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  • Gurjap

    Member • May 31, 2013

    Good replies to my question. Thank you.
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