Monitorización y análisis de la facturación y calidad del suministro eléctrico de una industria de bienes de consumo en Cataluña

Abstract

The rising of energy prices as well as the new rates structure of the Spanish electricity market have increased the impact of these costs on industries. To remain competitive, companies must pay special attention to their consumption and ensure that the contracted conditions are adequate to their needs, avoiding unnecessary costs and ensuring an optimal quality of service. This paper addresses such issues by analyzing the case of an industrial consumer (tariff 6.1) in the region of Argentona, Catalonia to evaluate the following aspects: that the active energy billing of the company is made according to correct measurements, that the contracted power is optimal to its needs and that there is an adequate control of reactive energy (inductive and capacitive) to avoid penalties in the bill. The latter is done by considering the current tariff structure and normative applicable to industrial consumers in Spain. Finally, a brief analysis is made regarding the quality of the electricity supply. The installation of equipment that monitors electrical variables and generates information is of great importance as a first step towards reducing energy costs. In addition, the possibility of observing energy consumption discriminated by periods makes it possible to plan when it is convenient to make certain consumptions. For the analysis done on this case study, power consumption data from a smart meter is obtained covering the period from 1/1/2022 to 04/30/2022. To validate the active energy billing, statistical metrics used to compare time series, typical in forecasting applications, are used in this case to contrast the fiscal meter hour electricity consumption measurements to that of an additional meter installed by the company, thus, validating the fiscal meter measures. Then, a contracted power optimization tool is used to find the most suitable contracted power value for each period, and modifications to the contracted power are suggested, which provide the possibility of annual savings. Regarding inductive reactive energy, it is observed that the company has no penalties for this concept at any time during the evaluated period, given the applicable rules for this concept. Although no information is available to corroborate it, the trends in the company’s reactive energy consumption permits to assume that the installation has some type of battery bank to compensate and reduce the inductive reactive energy consumed. What is more, there are repeated excesses of capacitive reactive energy in periods of low consumption, which exceed the limit established in the regulations. At this point, the penalizations associated to this issue has a zero cost, but is probable to increment in the future for which improvement actions are proposed. In terms of quality of the power supply, the need for this evaluation to be carried out in real time is evident. It is suggested to implement alarms that detect in real time when the values established by the standard are exceeded. When analyzing the events related to voltage reduction, the interruptions that occurred in the period of analysis are presented discriminated by month and time of occurrence. It is suggested to keep recording the interruptions during 2022 and at the end of the year applying the methodology again.