Associate Professor Dr. Muhammad Murtadha from the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia led his team to win the Gold Award for his research project entitled ‘Enhanced Volt-Var Optimization via Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Energy Efficiency Improvement in a Large-Scale Building’. The Gold Award certification was presented by Professor James Taylor, Chairman of Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Control & Automation, Technical Professional Network, United Kingdom.
The International Automation and Control Enhancing Innovation Competition (ACEiC) 2019 which took place from 14th to 15th October 2019 at the Dewan Seri Sarjana, Universiti Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN), Selangor had a theme, “Embracing the Change of Industry Revolution (I.R) 4.0”. The main objective of the competition was to bridge the knowledge and expertise gap between universities and industries focussing on automation and control systems. The opening ceremony was officiated by the Dean of the Faculty of Engineering, UNITEN, Prof. Ir. Dr. Izham Bin Datuk Zainal Abidin with an opening speech by Ir. Amir Farid Abdul Majid, Vice Chairman of IET Network Malaysia.
This project was conducted under the research collaboration between the FEE, UiTM and Malaysia Department of Public Works (JKR). The collaborative research team comprised of members from UiTM, namely Associate Professor Dr. Muhammad Murtadha Othman and Ts. Mohd Fuad Latip, as well as members from JKR, namely Ir. Mat Nasir Bin Kari, Ir Zilaila Binti Hj. Zakaria and Ir Mohd Ainor bin Yahya. The research project was funded by the Center of Excellence in Engineering and Technology (CREaTE), JKR signed under the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) between UiTM and JKR. This product is an improved version from the previous research project that was successfully implemented through financial support funded by the Malaysia Electricity Supply Industries Trust Account (MESITA) under the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water (KeTTHA).
The AI novel technology project proposes an enhanced Volt-Var optimization that can be used to improve pervasive energy efficiency problems caused by the total power losses, excessive incoming power, total harmonic distortion (THD) and violation of lagging power factor (p.f.) limit. This is important so as to ensure that a large-scale building operates in a safe and reliable condition whilst sustaining considerable reduction of electricity usage. In early stage of simulation studies shown that the enhanced Volt-Var optimization technique is able to improve the energy efficiency by 14%-24% in several large-scale buildings with a reasonable duration in the return of investment (ROI). The proposed technology has the potential to penetrate in a widespread market environment due to its durability and cheaper cost of electrical components utilization as well as a cost-effective solution in providing significant improvement of energy efficiency with shorter time period in the ROI.
Prepared by : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Muhammad Murtadha Othman & Assoc. Prof. Ir. Dr. Nur Ashida Salim, UiTM
Edited by: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Geetha Subramaniam, Fellow,InQKA,UiTM