Assessing the integration and automation of energy systems in Nigeria

Abstract

Development of a country is totally based on the availability of sustainable electrical power. Due to epileptic power supply in Nigeria, generation, transmission, distribution, and usage of energy are to be optimized for proper conservation of energy. Nigerian electricity is mainly generated from different sources like hydro power plants, thermal power plants, and gas generating plants. Presently, the epileptic power supply and longtime fault detection during distribution is a very serious problem. Also vandalism of transmission lines, gas pipe lines to generating stations and shortages are common in Nigerian electrical distribution systems. It is therefore paramount to implement a method for power distribution automation. This paper discusses ways to modernize the present systems using supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) for automatic control of distribution systems. However, Nigerian power systems use manual tap changer which increases and encourages power outage with less safety to the system. Therefore, this paper suggests automatic tap changer which maintains the voltage of the system and thus reduces manpower.