Abstract

Many developing countries face electricity supply shortfall. Utility operators induce scheduled power cuts 

to keep the demand under the available electricity supply. To deal with power cuts many consumers use 

inverters and fossil fuel generators. Inverters charge from the same electricity distribution system and 

provide energy to essential loads during power cut hours. However, uncontrolled use of inverters has created

 a cyclic load problem for an already stressed grid. In this paper, we propose a scheduling strategy that 

charge the inverters according to time of use pricing and consumer specified criteria of retaining minimum 

and maximum levels of charge in the battery. This strategy not only is able to lower the grid stress to a 

level specified by the grid operator but is also able to reduce the cost of ownership of inverters by as 

much as 30%. Additionally, this strategy has also shown to reduce the usage of fossil fuel generators due 

to availability of extra electricity in the system.