Engineering students light the way

UMBUMBULU, south-west of Durban, is zoned rural but over the last decade many from the “black middle class” have relocated there and built homes with all the bells and whistles.

Because of the influx of people, the demand on the local power grid has frequently been overwhelmed, much to the frustration of residents.

Philani Ndimande, a University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) student and an Umbumbulu local, has a bright idea to iron out town’s nagging power dips.

Ndimande, a fourth-year BSc electrical engineering student, displayed his problem-solving project at the UKZN’s “open day” yesterday.

The event featured a collection of innovative projects from the institution’s final year electrical, electronic and computer engineering (EECE) students, who drew from their learning and experience and produced solutions to modern day problems.

Ndimande titled his project “Planning and design of electrical network for the electrification of an informal rural community plagued by overload trips”.

His brainwave was to increase the electricity supply to Umbumbulu, especially in peak hours by ensuring the three existing sub-stations were working at an optimum level. Tapping into high-voltage sub-stations in neighbouring communities, using cables, would supply a new medium-voltage sub-station that he proposed for the area.

“Mainly the black middle class prefer settling here because they find it to be a more safe and peaceful place to stay.

“Also, it’s cheaper because there are no rates charges because Umbumbulu is under a tribal authority ‒ the Nyongoma Trust.”

Ndimande said some of the houses that sprouted in recent years were similar to those in KZN’s affluent suburbs.

“This has resulted in a higher demand for electricity and the supplier is usually one step behind.

“I’m a resident and I also work as a technician in the eThekwini Municipality’s electricity department. I’m well versed with the challenges all-round.”

He said whenever there were faults with feeder cables, power trips happened because of the overloading.

“The system cannot handle the loss of any of its feeder cables. The trips are frustrating and a great inconvenience for residents. The water supply is affected because the reservoirs need electricity to function.”

Umbumbulu was again without electricity last week.

Ndimande said his project was aimed at finding a technically and economically viable, implementable solution to the overload trips problem.

Work on his project began at start of the second semester. Ndimande remained in constant communication with the eThekwini’s Southern Areas Planning’s chief engineer for guidance throughout.

He considered all the equipment and infrastructure needed to make his project a success, and decided to do a load flow analysis. The results showed his solution was technically feasible and implementable.

“Now, it’s a matter of getting the proposal to the right people in the municipality for approval. I don't think it will take much convincing because the authorities are familiar with the people’s frustrations, which has spilled onto the streets at times.

“I’m on various community WhatsApp groups and I try to defuse the tensions when they flare up because of my proximity to the people and having knowledge of the municipality’s attempts to remedy situations.

“My phone rings non-stop when the outages happen. I always answer.”

Ndimande, who began his studies in 2002, and was faced with certain challenges, was satisfied that he had finished what he started.

He is optimistic that Umbumbulu’s electricity challenges will be eradicated in the near future and looks forward to residents living there in “complete bliss”.

Jesheran Yengopal is another UKZN student committed to keeping communities’ lights on and has worked on a project to counter criminal activity leading to some power outages.

Yengopal, a final year student pursuing a BSc (Eng) Degree in electrical engineering, was another contributor to UKZN’s open day.

He named his project “Development of a wireless sensor network for power plant equipment monitoring”.

His work focused on finding an alternative solution to monitor the health of equipment at electricity distribution sub-stations, like transformers and circuit breakers, as opposed to the copper wire system that was largely relied on now to perform that function.

The copper cables send signals to the on-site control room when faults occurred.

Yengopal said distribution sub-stations were vulnerable because security at these facilities were basic and criminal syndicates used the opportunity to steal copper, which had a high resale value (more than R120/kg).

Apart from monitoring for the smooth running of the equipment at power-plants, Yengopal was determined to find a way to end copper theft.

“When copper is stolen the sub-station needs to be shut down until it is replaced and electricity cannot be supplied to users. My system is needed to counter the problem,” said Yengopal who specialises in heavy current engineering.

He aimed to do the condition monitoring wirelessly and achieved that in a cost-effective way.

“I have a master-node that sits in the control room and I have slave nodes on different pieces of equipment in the yard.

“The slave nodes I designed fit onto circuit breakers, transformers and surge arrestors and monitors these pieces of equipment and wirelessly transfers what it sees to the master nodes.

“There are constant updates and the data can be viewed in real-time on a computer.”

It’s able to accommodate further functions.

Yengopal has been working on it since since July.

“This is a pilot project that can be implemented on other pieces of equipment and up-scaled further. The dashboard can also be updated to carry more readings.”

Yengopal has worked with Eskom part-time during holidays and was able to see first-hand the “amazing work” they do.

He said they often took much flak for things that weren’t their fault.

Yengopal said heavy-current experts familiar with his work were amazed.

He said he endured many sleepless nights to achieve his academic goals, and it was a good investment.

“I’m proud to have pulled off something like this using all my learning over the years to contribute positively to society.”