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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

Quantity Surveying celebrates many firsts
2014-10-20

 

From the left are: Pierre Oosthuizen, Prof Kajimo-Shakantu and Dr Stephan Ramabodu
Photo: Ifa Tshishonge



The Department of Quantity Surveying at the University of the Free State (UFS) has much to be proud of. With Prof Kahilu Kajimo-Shakantu as Head of the Department of Quantity Surveying, the department is celebrating several firsts.

For the first time, the department has four academics with PhDs. This includes Prof Kajimo-Shakantu, Dr Stephan Ramabodu, Dr Timothy Froise and Dr Benita Zulch. It is also the first time that this department is managed by a woman.

Furthermore, the Department of Quantity Surveying has performed very well at this year’s national Quantity Surveying Conference held in Pretoria, where they walked away with four of the seven awards.

The awards were:

•    Best presenter: Pierre Oosthuizen (lecturer)
•    Most innovative presenter: Pierre Oosthuizen (lecturer)
•    Best paper on engineering projects: Prof Kahilu Kajimo-Shakantu
•    Best academic paper: T Monyane (postgraduate student) and Dr Stephan Ramabodu (lecturer)

The South African Council for the Quantity Surveying Profession (SACQSP) also presented two prestigious life achievement awards. One of these were bestowed upon Prof Basie Verster from the UFS for his contribution to quantity surveying since the 1970s.

The university is especially proud of Dr Stephen Ramabodu, lecturer in the Department of Quantity Surveying, who completed his PhD this year. This makes of him the highest qualified quantity surveyor in the department and one of only a few holders of a quantity surveying PhD in the country. Dr Ramabodu is also registered with the South African Council for Quantity Surveying Professionals.

Prof Kajimo-Shakantu said the following of Dr Ramabodu. “Since 2002, Stephan was appointed as a lecturer in a programme called Grow Your Own Timber at the UFS. Later on, he went to Cape Town to gain some commercial experience, where he worked for Davis Langdon in 2005. In 2008, he returned to the Free State, where he established Ramabodu & Associates. Later on in the same year, he returned to the UFS as a lecturer to complete all the remaining milestones of the Grow Your Own Timber programme.

“The university looks forward to Stephen’s increased responsibilities and contributions, not only in teaching and learning, but also in research, mentoring and community engagement.”


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