Proposed Electricity Tariff Model for Residential Consumers in Maharashtra

This paper presents a modified electricity tariff structure for the residential consumers of Maharashtra state in India. It integrates the features of existing slab-wise tariff, the time-of-day tariff and an optional provision to incorporate the use of renewable energy through net-metering. Presently, except in the state of Kerala, almost all states in India follow the slab-wise structure for residential consumers with some variations from one state to another. With continuously rising pattern in the standard of living of people, there is a need to create more awareness for use of electricity with responsibility towards oneself as well as towards the environment. The proposed model have multiple advantages like (1) benefits of existing slab-wise tariff, (2) flexibility to reduce the electricity bill while consuming the same amount of energy, (3) reduction in load on the grid during peak hours, thus minimizing the need to install new generation capacities for supplying peak load and (4) consequently reduction in fuel cost and carbon emission. The proposed model is designed and developed in MATLAB environment and an application is created to test the model with real-time data. The results are very encouraging.