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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

Before and After Hector
2014-03-05

 

Björn Krondorfer

The apartheid years. The Anglo-Boer War. Mix these two topics together and you are ensured of a vigorous debate.

This was exactly the result at the Centenary Complex Gallery recently. During a round-table discussion, Kovsie students analysed an artwork by Gerrit Hattingh entitled “Before and After Hector”. The artwork depicts the iconic photo of Hector Pieterson – taken during the 1976 Soweto Uprising – staged as an event in the Anglo-Boer War.

The artwork functioned as the focal point at an exhibition curated by Angela de Jesus.The exhibition formed part of the International Research Forum hosted by the UFS which explored the topic of Societies in the Aftermath of Mass Trauma and Violence.

The ensuing conversation did not disappoint. The photograph evoked a wide range of views and emotions as the students reflected on the historic image representing violent and painful events of our collective past. As the students robustly exchanged their opinions, they developed strategies to support the reconciliation process. The dialogue assisted these students in formulating ways to look back at our history and use this knowledge to carry our society past traumatic experiences.

Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in the Office for Research on Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation, was astounded at the level of insight and wisdom the students displayed. “I am pleased that our students came to join us around the table to discuss this portrait which is iconic globally; to engage and also give their own interpretations of what they know, and what they do not know about our historical past. The dialogue about the interweaving of the Hector Pieterson photograph with the story of black victims of the British concentration camps is one of the ways of exploring the views of the younger generation in the aftermath of mass trauma and violence in our collective history,” Prof Gobodo-Madikizela concluded at the end of the conversation.

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