In an effort to address growing concerns about electricity blackouts, poor power quality and inefficient operations stakeholders recently gathered at the PAC World Africa Conference.

Hosted at CPUT the conference brings together the community of electric power system’s Protection, Automation and Control (PAC) specialists and was attended by approximately 140 delegates from ten countries.

The event was officially opened by CPUT Vice-Chancellor Prof Vuyisa Mazwi-Tanga and was the first of its type organized in Africa- others having previously taken place in Dublin and Brazil.

It is all thanks to CPUT’s Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems (CSAEMS) that the event came to the Africa at all. The unit is a leading research and training centre and participates actively in the work of the PAC World community, making it the ideal location.

Professor Raynitchka Tzoneva, of the CSAEMS at CPUT’s Electrical Engineering Department, says the conference discussions were instrumental in the formulation of new ideas that could ultimately lead to sustaining energy and power solutions.

Written by Ilse Fredericks

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The Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems (CSAEMS) is playing a leading role in skilling the energy sector.

The centre hosted a two-day “Introduction to IEC 61850” seminar, which is the only of its kind offered on the African continent.

TRAINING: Dr Alexander Apostolov, a world-class specialist in Substation Automation who holds four patents, with Prof Raynitchka Tzoneva.

Presented by Dr Alexander Apostolov, a world-class specialist in Substation Automation, the seminar explored new technologies which can be used to upgrade and optimize power systems.

It also looked at the implementation of various standards that have been set by the International Electrical Commission and touched on the aspects of substation automation.

Head of CSAEMS, Prof Raynitchka Tzoneva, says the seminar was a huge success and attracted participants from across South Africa and Namibia.

The centre has been running these workshops since 2009, however, this year is the first time they opened it up to newcomers in the energy sector.

Prof Tzoneva says previous training focused on engineers and technicians who had some knowledge of this specialised field. But with newcomers to the energy sector, the centre rolled out an introductory course.

 “As a response to this need the CSAEMS will in future organise two seminars per year - an introductory seminar for newcomers in May or June and an advanced seminar for experienced users in September,” says Prof Tzoneva.

By Candes Keating

Written by CPUT News
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Thanks to the bold efforts of one woman, CPUT is home to the world’s unique Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems (CSAEMS).

In 2011, CPUT opened the doors to the CSAEMS at its Bellville Campus, thanks to Prof Raynitchka Tzoneva, a leading researcher in the field of industrial process controls and automation.Equipped with the state ­of­ the ­art substation automation laboratory, the CSAEMS provides much needed training for students, engineers and technicians employed in the energy sector.

Tzoneva says the idea of the centre was born more than a decade ago, when in 2004 the International Electrical Commission (IEC) put in place the new IEC 61850 standards, which governs the building, implementation and operations of Substation Automation Systems.

“This innovative approach allows the functions of metering, monitoring, protection, control and automation to be integrated and the respective devices to become interoperable in one system, called a Smart grid. The result is high stability and security of power systems leading to an uninterrupted power flow to consumers,” says Tzoneva.

However, with a lack of skills hampering the roll out of this new technology in South Africa, Tzoneva and her colleagues Shaheen Behardien, Carl Kriger, Dr Senthil Krishnamurthy, Mkhululi Mnguni, Adeyemi Adewole, and Quinton Bart conceptualized the CSAEMS.

In a bid to set up the centre, Tzoneva applied for funding from the National Research Foundation and Department of Science and Technology, and was awarded R10 million to bring the concept to life. She also secured additional funding of R16 million from the Technology and Human Resources for Industry Programme, CPUT, TESP/Eskom, and industrial partners Alectrix and MBSA.

Today, the CSAEMS is an enabler for education, training, testing, research and development in new technologies, which can help to upgrade and optimize power systems in South Africa as well as the implementation of the various standards which have been set by the IEC.

“The availability of the state of the art equipment allows practical implementation of the research projects ideas and outcomes. We are in a position now to propose to the power sector in South Africa real-time solutions of protection, control, automation, and optimization problems”, says Prof. Tzoneva.

The CSAEMS also has close working ties with Prof Alexander Apostolov, a world class specialist in Substation Automation and one of the creators of the new substation automation technology. Apostolov regularly visits the centre, presents seminars, and also co-supervises postgraduate students.

“The centre is growing and developing. Many postgraduate students have completed their masters or doctoral studies here,” she says.

Recently Tzoneva was awarded funding from CPUT to conduct specialized research development of a cost-effective, standard-based Process Interface Device for the acquisition and distribution of data in support of intelligent decision-making within a smart grid environment. The project is one of the three prestigious projects at CPUT.

In addition, Tzoneva is part of a team that has secured funding from the ERASMUS+ K2, an initiative of the European Community, which will see the CSAEMS in collaboration with universities from Germany, Italy, Sweden, Tanzania, and South Africa develop a harmonized modular curriculum for the smart grid that will be integrated into engineering programmes.

This course will be the first in the world to introduce the new standard-based technologies as a master subject.

• The centre collaborates with the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University, Pretoria University, University of KwaZulu-Natal and Durban University of Technology. Other collaborators include consulting and design organisations, City of Cape Town, and vendors ABB, Alstom, GE, RJConnect, RTDS, RuggedCom, Schneider, SEL, and Siemens.

Written by Candes Keating
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Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news

Innovation, research and teaching activities in the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering will be further advanced with the consolidation of the department on the Bellville Campus this July.

As from 18 July 2016, the department’s 1500 students, along with administration, teaching and research staff will report for class and work at the newly built Electrical Engineering facility on the Bellville Campus.

The consolidation is part of the broader CPUT consolidation process underway, which will see all Faculty of Engineering programmes be offered on the Bellville Campus.

Head of the department, Ben Groenewald welcomes the consolidation and says it will have a positive impact on the department’s activities.

“Centralization of academic administration will be reduced by 50% or more, which will have a significant positive impact on our operational budgets. It should also reduce the academic load on staff as lecturing duplication will no longer be necessary,” he says.

Students too will benefit by the consolidation, with teaching and learning activities set to take place in the new 10 000 square meter facility.

The facility features two state-of-the-art, three story buildings that are joined together by a double volume mid-air walkway. One building houses close to 30 laboratories, each that will be used for the practical training of students in specific areas of electrical engineering, while the second building houses the department’s six research niche areas.

The two buildings that housed the Bellville leg of the department will be converted into additional classroom space.

Groenewald says the consolidation will also allow the department to consolidate its research centres and to refocus and strengthen its research initiatives.

“The facilities make it possible to now consider the development of a high-tech electronics production and development facility to support our research initiatives and to deliver services and training to SME’s,” he says.

“The addition of the new facilities provide us the opportunity to take up the technology challenges in the Western Cape and South Africa in terms of Energy Security, Space Science and Technology and to help find solutions for these challenges.”

*Current research centres housed in the department include the following:

• French South African Institute of Technology (F'SATI)
• Centre for Distributed Power and Electronic Systems
• Centre for Power Systems Research
• Centre for Instrumentation Research
• Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems

Written by Candes Keating
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Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.

The Bellville Campus is the administrative hub of CPUT, housing the university’s Council and Senate Chambers as well as the office of the Vice-Chancellor.

The campus is also home to some of the country’s leading research centres such as F’SATI, which was responsible for the development and launch of Africa’s first nanosatellite, Tshepiso.

Other internationally recognized research centres that are located at the campus include the Product Lifecycle Management Competency Centre, as well as the Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems.

The campus is home to the institution’s most cutting-edge facilities such as the Food Technology Building, which is the only educational and training facility of its kind on the African continent.

Students also have access to a range of sporting facilities, including an athletics track, squash courts, gym, swimming pool, and the Major Sports Hall that facilitates a variety of sports.

During the next year, a number of new facilities will be constructed at the campus, such as a new Electrical Engineering Building and the South African Renewable Energy Technology Centre that will be a national center for renewable energy training and education.

Maps and contact details for the Bellville Campus

Written by CPUT News
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Four MEng Electrical Engineering graduates working in the Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems (CSAEMS) will graduate summa cum laude tonight.

This means both their examiners awarded them more than 75% in their final assessment.

The four are part of a cohort of 29 Electrical Engineering postgraduate students studying under the supervision of the CSAEMS Centre, a state of the art substation automation laboratory under the directorship of Prof Raynitchka Tzoneva. Created in 2011 the Centre came about because the International Electrical Commission (IEC) put in place the IEC 61850 standards which governs the building, implementation and operations of Substation Automation Systems.

Supervised by Dr Senthil Krishnamurthy, Bwandakassy Cedrick Elenga Baningobera’s thesis “Implementation of an IEC 61850 standard-based harmonic blocking scheme for a power transformer” won him second best presentation at CPUT’s 2018 Postgraduate Conference. The 30-year-old from Brazzaville, Congo wants to continue with his DEng studies to develop a novel protection scheme in the Power Hardware-in-the-Loop simulation environment.

Dr Krishnamurthy also supervised Franck Noudjiep Djiepkop’s thesis: “A feeder reconfiguration scheme with integration of renewable energy sources using a particle swarm optimisation method”. This research focused on the development of solutions for feeder reconfiguration problem to increase the flexibility, reliability and efficiency of electrical distribution systems. Optimising the feeder reconfiguration and distributed energy resources in a distribution network could provide addition power to a grid and improve the operation of the distribution system. Djiepkop is looking for opportunities to pursue further research on a doctoral level.

Supervised by Prof Raynitchka Tzoneva, Ncedo Mguzulwa worked part-time over four years to complete an “Investigation of interoperability of IEC 61850 protection functions”. Mguzulwa, 33, currently works for the City of Cape Town in the Electricity Generation and Distribution Department. He investigated the IEC61850 protocol that allows for communication between protection relays. “Procurement is a big part of engineering, and utilities and municipalities have to be careful and not be locked into one vendor or service provider in order to ensure bids are fair and competitive. Therefore this research evaluated how different vendors and manufacturers of protection relays can be interoperable as the communication protocol has already been standardised,” explained Mguzulwa.

Mukovhe Ratshitanga was also supervised by Tzoneva for his thesis: “Investigation and design of an integrated monitoring, protection and control system of a power reticulation network” which he developed part-time over three years under the CPUT Khula project. Ratshitanga, 35 is currently lecturing at CPUT, assisting with research and development within the CSAEMS and intending to study further. His research showed a reduction in cost on installation, operation and maintenance in substations, if his suggested integration of systems will be implemented on the CPUT reticulation network.

“All four postgraduates implemented the developed in their theses solutions in real-time test beds achieving excellent operation and performance. The high quality and novelty in their theses will be presented by publications in leading recognised journals in the field,” said Tzoneva.

Written by Theresa Smith
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From next year CPUT will offer a Masters of Engineering in Smart Grids, making us the first institution in the world to offer this IEC61850 standard-based Protection, Automation and Control (PAC) specialisation.

The Master in Electrical Engineering in Smart Grids qualification (level 9 on the NQF scale) will run concurrently with the regular Masters of Electrical Engineering programme at CPUT.
A Smart Grid is an electrical grid which incorporates a variety of operational and energy measures including smart meters, smart appliances, variable renewable energy resources, power substations and digital information and control systems.

Director of the Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems (CSAEMS), Prof Raynitchka Tzoneva, says this new Masters programme is a one of a kind.
“Our programme is unique in the world because it presents integrated knowledge for IEC61850 standard-based technologies for monitoring, protection, optimisation and control necessary for building Smart Grids and the education has a strong practical component for implementation of the considered solutions,” explained Tzoneva.

She says there are similar Masters programmes at universities in Europe, America, Africa and Asia. “But the content of their courses is limited to the technology of some elements of the Distributed Energy Resources as parts of the Smart Grid. There is one programme at Stellenbosch University called ‘Structural MEng. In Smart Grid Technology’ which is also part of the DAMOC project, but they teach mainly the technology of the renewable energy sources,” said Tzoneva. (DAMOC stands for the Development of a hArmonized MOdular Curriculum for the Smart Grid, an Erasmus+ project aimed at fostering capacity at African higher education institutions.)

A leading researcher in the field of industrial process controls and automation, Tzoneva helped to start the Centre in 2011. Equipped with a state of the art substation automation laboratory, the CSAEMS provides training for students, engineers and technicians employed in the energy sector. The need for the Centre goes back to 2004 when the International Electrical Commission (IEC) put into place the new IEC 61850 standards which governs the building, implementation and operations of Substation Automation Systems.

Whereas the university programmes elsewhere study the components of the smart grid, CPUT’s M Eng in Electrical Engineering in Smart Grids looks at the Smart Grid as a whole.
Smart Grids is still a new field “and it is difficult for narrow specialised electrical, IT, control or computer engineer to work in it because it requires interdisciplinary knowledge. The specialist in Smart Grids must know power systems, control systems, computers systems and communication systems,” said Tzoneva.

“The new qualification tries to prepare the students in the field of Smart Grids which is very new and difficult. First through the courses and parallel to that they will have research projects,” said Tzoneva.

Postgraduate Electrical Engineering students undergo a rigorous application process to the Centre before being accepted into the programme. Currently, the Centre is supervising 29 postgraduate students, which includes 9 on the doctoral level.

For the M ENG Electrical Engineering in Smart Grids qualification students have to study fulltime for two years, concentrating half of their time on attending classes, and the other half of their time working on a full thesis. This is different from the standard M ENG in Electrical Engineering which is a 100% thesis programme.

Early in next year the CSAEMS will host all members of the DAMOC project, three universities from Europe and South Africa each plus two from Tanzania – to demonstrate the laboratory and discuss the curriculum of the new programme.

Written by Theresa Smith
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CPUT is extending its global network of partners, thanks to the Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility programme.

Over the next five-years, CPUT and the Yildiz Technical University (YTU) in Turkey will participate in a mobility agreement, which is earmarked to strengthen and expand research and innovation in the fields of Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems and Control Systems Engineering.

The Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility programme facilities and funds short term mobility projects for staff and students from European and selected countries elsewhere in the world. The programme ties in with CPUT’s Internationalization Strategy, by promoting international ties between institutions and creating opportunities for professional development, for both staff and students.

As part of the agreement, CPUT’s Centre for Substation Automation and Energy Management Systems (CSAEMS) and YTU’s Departments of Control and Automation Engineering and Electrical Engineering will embark on a program of student and staff exchange.

CPUT researcher, Carl Kriger, who is the Erasmus+ Credit Mobility Programme coordinator for the Department of Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering, says they are looking forward to the collaboration with YTU, which is a dedicated engineering sciences institution and one of the most prominent higher educational institutions in Istanbul, Turkey.

Kriger says over the next five years CPUT students following courses in electrical, electronic and computer engineering will have the opportunity to complete courses at YTU, which are not available for offering in South Africa. Researchers will also have the opportunity to spend up to two months at YTU and work alongside their counterparts.

Prof Seref Naci Engin, head of the Control and Automation Engineering Department in the Faculty of Electrical and Electronics at the YTU, says the programme will commence next term with two CPUT doctoral students expected to spend a semester in Turkey, while three doctoral students from YTU will conduct research and training at CPUT.

Engin, who recently visited the Bellville Campus with a delegation from the Turkey based institution, says there are already numerous existing projects the two institutions can collaborate on.

“We would also like to start new research projects, with the goal of producing research publications,” he says.

Engin, who collaborated with CPUT in 2008 on a National Research Foundation-funded research project, says he hopes that they will be able to extend this agreement.

Written by Candes Keating
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Provides coverage for the Engineering and Applied Sciences Faculties; the Bellville and Wellington Campuses, and research and innovation news.