Abstract:
Voltage drop is major concern in low voltage distribution systems. Many feeders with the main inner city area were founded to be overloaded, resulting in low voltages in some cases. Many of the longer outlying feeders in Addis Ababa were founded to suffer from excessive voltage drop. Due to this problem, Daily activities are disrupted and hence they are strongly complaining the EEU.
The aim of this project was to identify the root causes and effects of voltage drop problems in the secondary distribution network which is the part of the distribution grid directly connected to the final consumers and evaluating appropriate remedies for the problems. To this end, primary and secondary data were collected. A primary data is collected through questionnaires, interviews and observations. This research involved actual measurements of data from existing secondary distribution feeder network at specific place called Weyra area which is supplied by 315kVA distribution transformer. The various causes and occurrences of voltage drop are highlighted in this study. The voltage drop profiles in both residential and commercial areas are presented. As it is verified in this study, the voltage drop could be reduced from 53.2% to 28.2% by replacing the existing conductor of the secondary distribution network with higher size conductor. In addition, this also reduced the power loss by 40.77%. Even if it needs extra cost, EEU could mitigate the under voltage problem and reduce the power loss by replacing the existing conductors with larger cross sectional area and shorter conductors.