A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering

Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 1997

Myanma Electric Power Enterprise (MEPE), like utilities in other developing countries, relies on foreign equity. Customers are facing frequent power shortages and poor power quality. Economic growth is restricted by poor power availability. There is a severe lack of public funds, particularly foreign exchange. Power sector is calling for drastic changes and development. Although adoption of demand side measures is one possible way to solve these problems, the integrated resource planning concept is still new in Myanmar. The comparisons between economic and environmental impacts of employing efficient end-use technologies and construction of additional generating capacity is thus the obvious need. The first part of the study focuses on the electricity savings and carbon-dioxide mitigation potential from efficient household appliances for Myanmar power sector. The potential is simply estimated by using electricity demand forecast. Technoeconomic potential is assessed by analyzing cost-effectiveness of end-use efficiency measures. It is found that low residential electricity prices which hardly reflect the cost of production and distribution make energy efficiency improvements appear less cost-effective than they really are. Optimal capacity expansion for electric utilities through integrated resource planning is studied in the later part. Demand side options and carbon-dioxide reduction options are put in the mixed integer programming model. Five cases have been analyzed in this study. The first case is traditional resource planning in which only supply resources are included. The later four cases with demand side management options and emission constraints are compared with the first case. Myanmar power sector- MEPE - data is used in this process. For integrated resource planning framework optimal resource and generation mix, total supply costs, marginal capacity and marginal energy costs, reliability of power supply and environmental impacts are determined for the comparison of different options. The results reveal that end-use efficiency measures provide an opportunity to have a positive impact upon present situation. Under integrated resource planning, emission of pollutant decreases with decreasing overall expenditure. Though it is not always possible to reduce emission by using demand side options, integrated resource planning along with environmental constraints will lessen the emission level without increasing the total expenditure. Integrated resource planning is worth to be initiated.