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Project Profile

Power Load Shedding at a Historical College

Industry: Education

Overview

Innotech's Genesis II Digital Control System was successfully installed at Mercedes College, Perth - the oldest existing girls' school in Australia - to enable the college to loadshed non-essential systems during periods of peak demand.

Challenge

Mercedes College receives a limited supply of power from its local electricity grid, and the high demand of the college's various equipment often exceeds the available supply.

In order to make it possible for the college to loadshed, it was necessary to install a cost-effective control system that would integrate the main power supply, situated on the outside perimeter of the grounds, with existing building systems and services.

Site Logistics & Timing

Mercedes College traces its origins back to 1846 and is considered unique and significant in the history of Western Australia. The college is situated on a vast 4-hectare pocket of land. Each building stands apart from the others, surrounded by spacious established gardens, extensive paving, and roadways.

Due to the geographical layout and historical importance of the college, it was not feasible to use a conventional wired network between the main power supply and the buildings.

As the college's need for loadshedding was quite urgent, the installation had to be completed within a short space of time. A majority of the work was required to take place during school hours, making it imperative that interruption to daily operations be kept to a minimum.

Solution

The Genesis II System was ideally suited to the college's needs as it has the ability to be configured for use in complex system routines, and is able to communicate this information globally to other controllers within a network environment.

Two Mid Point Controllers (MPC's) were installed. The first is situated at the main switchboard, the second was installed alongside the college's air conditioning systems within the IT building.

The MPC situated at the main switchboard and monitors the incoming power supply from six current transducers. For the purpose of trend analysis, it then calculates and logs power supply demand at any given time. This information is then transmitted to the second MPC to provide a rotational and incremental loadshed to the building's air conditioning units. As the current increases within the system, loadshed occurs progressively until the load is reduced. At this point, the load stabilises for a minimum of 15 minutes.

The duty cycle of the loadshed is then rotated through all air conditioning units, ensuring that an even distribution of loadshed is shared throughout the IT building.

Due to the flexibility and global communication capability of Genesis II, the new system was able to be connected to the college's ethernet network via third party servers (Lantronix UDS 10).

Each device server is connected to a separate network hub located within, or adjacent to, each MPC. Each network hub is supported by a fibre optic backbone with a cable distance of approximately one kilometre between the two device servers.

Mercedes College currently utilises four ranges of network IP's. With the installation of the new Innotech system it is possible to link each MPC with a unique static IP that does not tie up the college's resources.

The Genesis II truly forms its own "global network" - a network that does not rely on servers to process information between the two controllers.

Summary

Ian Bartter, the Bursar of Mercedes College, was full of praise for the new system. "The Innotech control system has provided a fully functional, cost-effective solution to a very expensive problem," he said.

NRP Electrical Services completed installation of the system efficiently and quickly - within one working week - and with only very minor interruptions to the college's operations.

Key Functions