Development of an Internet of Things Based Campus Energy Management System

Abstract

The epileptic power supply at university environment has been a great challenge facing Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU). An Internet of Things (IoT) system was developed to mitigate energy wastages in Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU), Uli Campus. The analysis of old energy consumption pattern in COOU and corresponding energy wastages were carried out. The analysis was restricted to three buildings in the campus namely Faculty of Engineering, University Hostel and University Library. The data were collected by conducting physical energy audit; all loads installed in these three buildings were examined to determine their rated power, power factor and their operation time as detailed by the manufacturers. Staff using the loads were also interviewed to know the number of hours that each load is put in use. The estimated cost of running the university diesel generators was computed based on the data collected from the University Works department. The general power consumption pattern for the COOU, Uli campus was predicted using the Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER 3.16 pro) software. The study used two different approaches: Gate Level Oriented Implementation (GLOI) and Object-Oriented Analysis and Design (OOAD). An IoT based system was designed and developed to monitor, control and manage the power supplied to the three grids remotely. The tools used to design the prototype include: Arduino ESP32, Arduino IDE, Realtime clock, NRF21L01 and Relays. Software to drive the hardware was built using VScode, while flutter and dart were the web tools for the application used in controlling the system remotely via the internet. Firebase was used to design the database for storage of collated data. When test running the new system, it was observed that the system helped the University to save 710.3 kW worth of energy every day. This implies that the percentage energy saved each day is 65.89% and it also implies that the University will be saving a sum of N142, 060 each day when this system is deployed.