Metering and Data Acquisition System for Electrical Gateway

Herbert L. Hess

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Conference: 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access
Location: Virtual On line
Publication Date: June 22, 2020
Start Date: June 22, 2020
End Date: June 26, 2021
Conference Session: Instrumentation Division Technical Session 2
Tagged Division: Instrumentation
Tagged Topic: Diversity
Page Count: 12
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--34970
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/34970
Download Count: 481

Paper Authors

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Herbert L. Hess University of Idaho, Moscow

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Herb Hess is Professor of Electrical Engineering at the University of Idaho, where he teaches subjects in He received the PhD Degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1993. His research and teaching interests are in power electronics, electric machines and drives, electrical power systems, and analog/mixed signal electronics. He has taught senior capstone design since 1985 at several universities.

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Abstract

The public electric utility provides electrical energy to ___________ University through two electrical entrances, points of common coupling. The university owns and maintains all electrical equipment on the load side of these two gateways. For billing, the utility samples at fifteen minute intervals. Billing is done per a commercial tariff, the most significant items being charges for. energy, demand, and power factor, and a discount for the high voltage interface.

The Facilities Director became concerned that the demand charges seemed too high. He also wanted control of the information at the gateways as part of a long term plan to set up an emergency microgrid of the university proper. This required advanced technology that he lacked. He has had significant success in obtaining advanced electric power distribution technology by commissioning senior undergraduate design projects. Students in these projects design and prototype these technologies, demonstrating them and enabling the director to ask the right questions when letting out construction contracts.

Data acquisition to support the director’s plans was woefully inadequate. Input power is sampled on fifteen minute intervals. The utility calculates energy charges and demand charges based on these readings. When demand charges became too high for comfort, the director commissioned a senior capstone design team to create a new interface on his side of the gateway, one that reported to the director. The students designed and built a prototype data acquisition system using blocks from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL). SEL provides any of its products to the equipment to the university for free if used in research. A set of SEL 735 and SEL 741 units, both electric power monitors, sensed and acquired the data. A SEL server then packeted the data and sent it to Facilities through the university IT network. Creating and navigating the path was a design challenge in itself. One set of data was interfaced to the campus Ethernet port at the Bookstore. The other set of data was sent wirelessly to an SEL server in the university Research Office. Data was then formatted and stored on the Facilities server. Computer security issues were important at each step of the way. The students designed, installed, and demonstrated all the equipment in a prototype system that Facilities then picked up and installed intact on site. Coordination with the public utility was a big part of the project. The system is now operating and catching some errors in the university’s electric bill in near real time.

This paper will present a brief history of this university’s student projects of this nature with Facilities, describing how these projects led to a means of technology transfer to the university’s infrastructure. A complete description of this design and interface project will follow. Technical issues that were encountered and solved will be explained. An assessment of the system’s performance and of student learning will be performed.

Citation
Format

Hess, H. L. (2020, June), Metering and Data Acquisition System for Electrical Gateway Paper presented at 2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual On line . 10.18260/1-2--34970

TY - CPAPER
AB - The public electric utility provides electrical energy to ___________ University through two electrical entrances, points of common coupling. The university owns and maintains all electrical equipment on the load side of these two gateways. For billing, the utility samples at fifteen minute intervals. Billing is done per a commercial tariff, the most significant items being charges for. energy, demand, and power factor, and a discount for the high voltage interface.

The Facilities Director became concerned that the demand charges seemed too high. He also wanted control of the information at the gateways as part of a long term plan to set up an emergency microgrid of the university proper. This required advanced technology that he lacked. He has had significant success in obtaining advanced electric power distribution technology by commissioning senior undergraduate design projects. Students in these projects design and prototype these technologies, demonstrating them and enabling the director to ask the right questions when letting out construction contracts.

Data acquisition to support the director’s plans was woefully inadequate. Input power is sampled on fifteen minute intervals. The utility calculates energy charges and demand charges based on these readings. When demand charges became too high for comfort, the director commissioned a senior capstone design team to create a new interface on his side of the gateway, one that reported to the director. The students designed and built a prototype data acquisition system using blocks from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL). SEL provides any of its products to the equipment to the university for free if used in research. A set of SEL 735 and SEL 741 units, both electric power monitors, sensed and acquired the data. A SEL server then packeted the data and sent it to Facilities through the university IT network. Creating and navigating the path was a design challenge in itself. One set of data was interfaced to the campus Ethernet port at the Bookstore. The other set of data was sent wirelessly to an SEL server in the university Research Office. Data was then formatted and stored on the Facilities server. Computer security issues were important at each step of the way. The students designed, installed, and demonstrated all the equipment in a prototype system that Facilities then picked up and installed intact on site. Coordination with the public utility was a big part of the project. The system is now operating and catching some errors in the university’s electric bill in near real time.

This paper will present a brief history of this university’s student projects of this nature with Facilities, describing how these projects led to a means of technology transfer to the university’s infrastructure. A complete description of this design and interface project will follow. Technical issues that were encountered and solved will be explained. An assessment of the system’s performance and of student learning will be performed.
AU - Herbert L. Hess
CY - Virtual On line
DA - 2020/06/22
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Metering and Data Acquisition System for Electrical Gateway
UR - https://peer.asee.org/34970
DO - 10.18260/1-2--34970
ER -