Irrigation

Load Management

Irrigation Load Control

Our goal is to reduce our customer's electric bill by controlling the costs of purchased power during peak periods.

What is Load Management?

To a public power district, load management means controlling the use of electricity during peak usage periods to help control the costs of purchased power. The peak demand for electricity usually occurs because of common usage patterns.

By reducing demand during the hours of highest use (peak periods of demand) peaking units or other expensive sources of power will not have to be utilized to provide the needed power.

By spreading power usage over longer periods during the day, maximum use of present power capacity can be used, reducing the need for peaking power or power bought at higher rates from other utilities.

How Does Load Management Affect the Cost of Electricity?

The highest peak demand during the peak month (usually July or August) sets the rate at which your power supplier buys power for the next twelve months, or when a new peak is set. This is known as ratchet. Simply stated, your power supplier pays for power at the rate set by the highest peak demand each month regardless of the amount of power sold. It is very much like minimum bill, only it can add up to thousands of dollars each month and several hundred thousand dollars in a year. These ratchet costs are in turn, billed back to you the consumer.

The important role of load management comes in when the amount of the peak demand can be reduced. By lowering the peak, the lower the ratchet amount will be. The lower the ratchet amount, the lower the cost of wholesale power. This helps keep your rates low. It will not reduce your rates, but it can keep them from climbing higher.

Important Reminders

Auto-Restart - If the only reason you're not on load control is because you don't like getting up and starting the well, auto-restart could be the answer. By going on load control you will save hundreds of dollars and the auto-restart can be purchased and installed for only $200 to $300. The auto-restart group usually has less control time. They get turned on as soon as we think the load has dropped enough whether or not NPPD has waived control or not. We have several customers on auto-restart already and they seem to be getting along great on our load control program.

Security Seals - We have installed security seals on all load control sockets. Over the next few weeks we will be checking to be sure these seals are in place. Please check your load control switch to be sure it is sealed. Wells with confirmed evidence of tampering will be billed at the no control rate. Tampering can be dangerous and costly.

Low Pressure Switches - They are necessary for proper operations of a pivot system under load control. Without this equipment the pivot will continue to "walk" while the pump is shut down.

Never pull a 480 volt meter - 480 volts arcs can take place which turn the glass meter into a "bomb" and molten metal can fly in a fraction of a second. Call us to de-energize the service if your electrician recommends this.

Check the large fuses at the transformer - Before you call with an outage, check the large fuses at the transformer. This helps in the trouble shooting of the problem. These fuses could be an indication of lightning strikes, bad underground wire or a variation of other things. But if the fuses are in, the problem is at the pump and it could be the load control box or a fuse in the pump panel.

Load Control Announcement - AM 84/FM 107.9 from West Point will keep you informed about the status of load controlling for the day. Announcements are given three times throughout the day starting about the middle of June and run Monday through Saturday until the end of the first week in September.

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