Power to the people
Joint venture to cut soaring energy demand
Consumers get power of veto: Touchscreen and mobile device.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Johnson, right, with Professor Singh and Mr Kim at the launch.
Professor Singh demonstrates the system to State Government Technology Industries Director, Mr Matt Carrick, left.
La Trobe University researchers have joined forces with a Melbourne-based semiconductor developer to commercialise a cost-effective energy management system designed to tackle climate change.
The new ‘smart technology’, developed and trialled on the main Melbourne campus at Bundoora, empowers householders, business and industry to monitor and manage their own power consumption from intelligent touch screens that deliver meter readings updated every half-hour.
Launched in March, its commercialisation will be carried out by the University’ Centre for Technology Infusion and Semitech Innovations Pty Ltd through a joint venture R&D company, EcoEnergy Innovations Pty Ltd.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Johnson described it as ‘brilliant technology’ that can be used via existing power networks without the need for expensive wiring and retrofitting.
He said the University would become the first client of the new company, extending an existing pilot project to the main administration building on the Bundoora campus. ‘Universities have a responsibility to lead in finding a fast and effective response to climate change,’ Professor Johnson said.
Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Tim Brown – who is also EcoEnergy’s Innovation Director – echoed those sentiments: ‘We are delighted to be first to benefit from this, and to demonstrate how technology and motivation can help solve one of the most urgent challenges of our time.’
Speaking about his company’s work on the project, Mr Stephen Kim, CEO of Semitech Innovations, said use of the new monitoring system would help make La Trobe University ‘the first green campus in Australia’.
Director of Technology Industries, Department of Innovation, Industry and Regional Development, Mr Matt Carrick, said the Victorian Government was also excited about the new system.
‘We are celebrating a fantastic example of innovation in practice and the fruits this can deliver.’ He said government support for the project went back to its links with the chip skills program in Victorian universities in the late 1990s.
The technology offers cost and energy savings at minimal expense to consumers, using existing powerlines to communicate between appliances and electrical meters.
Its centrepiece is a home or business-based intelligent touch-screen that keeps consumers in the picture about their energy consumption and provides options for reducing consumption. It can also be operated remotely, from computers, mobile phones and other hand-held devices.
Energy use is measured in real time by smart meters with micro-chips that can be embedded in household and business electrical appliances. The system provides consumers with options to switch off appliances, or re-program them to turn on at different times.
Director of La Trobe’s Centre for Technology Infusion, Professor Jack Singh, says the chief incentive for consumers is cost savings. Appliances like dishwashers or washing machines can be programmed from touch screens to switch themselves on at times of low demand and low tariffs, revealing instantly the savings people are making in energy costs and greenhouse emissions.
And suppliers will be able to better manage the power grid, flattening out peaks in consumer demand and redistributing the load across lower demand periods.
‘The overall impact will be reductions in cost and greenhouse gas,’ says Professor Singh. ‘If all consumers in Victoria had such a meter we could expect signifi cant reduction in total greenhouse emissions.’
The system was developed and piloted in the Technology Enterprise Centre on the University’s Bundoora Research and Development Park, recording energy consumption of the entire building at half-hourly intervals.
Using smart meters and a data concentrator powered by SiMAC (System-on-a-chip) technology, thirty commercial tenants during the first five months of the pilot could cut their energy consumption by at least 25 per cent – simply by switching off all electrical appliances overnight, with options for further savings.
‘The most exciting aspect,’ says Professor Singh, ‘is not the technology per se, although it is smart technology. It is the persuasive power of the technology to change people’s behaviour and to make an impact on the environment. Anything that plugs into a power point is controllable, and you can control it from anywhere – at work, from your desktop computer, or your mobile phone,’ Professor Singh says.
Patent applications have been filed for two key components of the technology: Semitech’s smart ‘system-on-a-chip’ embedded in the meters and which drives the monitoring process; and the La Trobe Centre for Technology Infusion’s persuasive integrated soft ware that targets consumer behavioural change.
EcoEnergy Innovations is seeking commercial partners to deliver the technology to consumers. The company is also discussing options with firms off shore, including IBM, which is trialling the system in its data management centre in Germany. The CSIRO will also use the system in its new Zero Emission House project.