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26 May 2020 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo iStock
UFS campuses are transforming into research instruments while simultaneously improving campus operations through the Smart Grid initiative.

Imagine living in a smart home. Imagine monitoring your household’s electricity usage via an integrated system that would notify you of your daily electricity use, peak usage times, and tariffs and consumption at the location of the house. As a user, you would be able to take advantage of such information in order to manage your resources in a more efficient manner. This is just one example of what a Smart Grid can do.

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences has teamed up with the Department of University Estates to drive our very own Smart Grid initiative that is transforming the university’s power network into one with full control and monitoring. “A Smart Grid allows for resource optimisation and asset protection, especially in times like these,” said Nicolaas Esterhuysen, Director of Engineering Services. 

Why is it important for our university to have a Smart Grid?
Dr Jacques Maritz, Lecturer of Engineering Sciences at the Faculty, considers a Smart Grid the natural evolution of power grids in the era of Big Data, IoT and Machine Learning. Resources such as electricity, water and steam can now be monitored and controlled to promote savings and the protection of valuable infrastructure. “Aiming towards Smart Grid status, the UFS will improve resource service-delivery to its staff and students, while sculpting a digital twin of its campus’s power grid, consumer network and resource generators,” he added.
  
How will a Smart Grid improve student success?
The integrity, sustainability and continuous supply of energy directly affects the academic project on all three campuses. The implementation of a Smart Grid could allow improved service delivery and reaction time when any utility is interrupted, as well as maintaining the valuable infrastructure that serves the UFS community.

In what way does a Smart Grid improve the lives of staff members?
According to Dr Maritz  and Esterhuysen: “A Smart Grid will support staff to perform their teaching and research duties in a seamless manner, continuously optimising the energy that they consume to enable full comfort and reliability in energy supply, whilst simultaneously generating savings in energy and preventing wastage.”

The UFS already boasts most of the fundamental building blocks associated with the Smart Grid initiative, especially focusing on monitoring, grid protection, centralised and decentralised solar PV generation and software platforms to serve all these domains. However, to integrate all of these domains into one digital real-time paradigm will be a first for the UFS.

Some examples of the UFS smart grid applications currently in practice
Real-time remote monitoring and control that focuses on the following:
- We are able to detect power outages and don’t have to rely on customer complaints. This enables faster response time and fault identification, thus less downtime and an increase in reliability;
- Solar plant generation; 
- Monitoring our standby generation fleet; 
Identifying usage patterns and saving thereof;
Benchmarking buildings in terms of application usage, area or occupancy to determine energy efficiency and identify savings; and condition-based preventive maintenance that will increase reliability while saving costs.

News Archive

CHE lifts notice of withdrawal of UFS LLB degree’s accreditation status
2017-11-16


The Council on Higher Education (CHE) has lifted the notice of withdrawal of the accreditation status of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) LLB degree. The degree is conditionally accredited with a progress report required in October 2018.

The Faculty of Law received this response to its Improvement Plan for the LLB degree from the CHE on 14 November 2017.

During 2016, a national review was conducted on all LLB programmes in order to strengthen the quality of legal education provision at all South African universities. On 30 March 2017, the Higher Education Quality Committee (HEQC) approved the findings of the National Reviews Committee (NRC) with regard to the LLB programme at the UFS, and placed the qualification on a notice of withdrawal of accreditation.

The decision of the CHE this week comes after the faculty submitted the Improvement Plan during early October 2017. This plan sets out for the CHE the changes that will be effected in the LLB programme for 2018 and 2019 and provides an outline of the new LLB curriculum it intends to introduce in 2020.

“The university’s executive management is extremely pleased about the outcome and welcomes the lifting of the notice of withdrawal of accreditation status, as it comes during a critical time of the year when the new cohort of Law students is completing their Grade 12 exams. Prof Caroline Nicholson, Dean of the Faculty of Law, and her team are commended for the considerable effort put into the submission and the extensive attention that was specifically given to concerns raised by the CHE in terms of the number of credits in the degree,” says Prof Francis Petersen, Rector and Vice-Chancellor of the UFS. 

“There is hard work to be done going forward in ensuring that the UFS LLB degree is the very best on offer in South Africa, but with the continued support and commitment of the staff and students in the Faculty of Law, this vision is achievable,” says Prof Nicholson.

 

Released by:
Lacea Loader (Director: Communication and Brand Management)
Telephone: +27 51 401 2584 | +27 83 645 2454
Email: news@ufs.ac.za | loaderl@ufs.ac.za
Fax: +27 51 444 6393

 

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