The Noida Power Company Limited (NPCL) is responsible for supply of electricity in the Noida region of Uttar Pradesh state, which also includes supplying electricity to Noida’s agriculture sector at subsidized rates for irrigation done through pump-sets. This consumption accounts for an estimated 30 percent of electricity distributed. Since these connections are charged on the basis of a flat rate and are un-metered, the actual consumption is not known.

WII assessed the normative electricity consumption of these pump-sets by undertaking a study over a representative sample of these pump-sets. NPCL will achieve the following:

• Be in a better position to optimally undertake its system maintenance, management, planning and expansion
• Identify energy saving opportunities in agricultural connections and embark on strategies to conserve electricity
• Have a good estimate of actual amount of subsidy that is benefiting the agricultural consumer. Realistic policies on tariffs as well as on reimbursing NPCL, the shortfalls due to subsidy can be worked out
• Able to assess the extent of misuse of electricity, if any, through agricultural connections

WII identified a set of 100 pump-sets as a representative sample. NPCL installed metering devices on these pump-sets. WII has used a combination of powerful statistical tools known as inferential statistics and stratified random sampling. A methodology was developed to identify a sample of pump-sets that were metered to arrive at Normative Consumption of electricity. The final report has been submitted to NPCL