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Sustainability in ECSE

The department is a strong supporter of the green energy movement., and supports the Universities Green initiatives involving recycling and minimising waste.
Over the years, many initiatives have been implemented in the department including ways to save energy.

Examples of energy saving initiatives include:
  • Auto-dimming florescent lighting in our teaching laboratories [reduce power intake when the sun shines]
  • Zoned lighting with many switches
  • Timed complete shutdown of computers in teaching laboratores overnight
  • The Power Lab recycles it's power usage when students are learning about controlling electrical motors by feeding the energy back through power electronic converters into the Grid instead of dumping the power into resistor banks. This was implemented in the early 1990's, and is still quite unique in teaching labs.
The power electronics group who specialise in energy control and conversion devices have been involved in the international energy challenge projects which aim to expose student groups to power electronic energy saving challenges. In 2009 the power electronics group is hosting the wind turbine energy maximiser project, in which student groups from around the world aim to create more efficient wind energy controllers.

Units taught in the department include subjects on electrical energy generation,  power systems analysis, variable speed drives, power electronics and many ways to design and efficiently use electrical energy.

At the other end of the energy usage and savings that related to the department are the savings created by telecommunications research, with improved bandwidth and efficiency in communications and the devices in the backbone of the internet that are created out of research in the department.
 
The above summary was written by Daniel Grimm, the ECSE IT Manager, who seeks to minimise energy usage while providing maximum computer power and innovative IT related services to the department.