Preventing unscheduled electrical shutdowns

The Randwick Labor Club, in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs, provides social and entertainment facilities for the local community.

As a result of renovations back in 2007, which included the rebuilding of the second level gaming area; a fire safety upgrade; a new electricity switchboard with a single supply and a new foyer, the Randwick Labor Club became under-supplied with power and suffered from regularly overloaded fuses, which in turn, led to power drop outs. This had a severe effect on the club’s operating systems that were integral to its business, including lighting, air conditioning and refrigeration. At times, the club had to be closed until the fuses were replaced, which meant considerable loss of trade.

Reflecting on these problems, Randwick Labor Club manager, Bill Clegg commented: “It was unacceptable for us to keep losing power. Even once we had bought spare replacement fuses, we still needed to have an electrician come to fit them, so we still had to keep closing intermittently.”

Clegg started looking into long-term solutions for the problem. It transpired that the transformer in the street did not have the capacity for the club’s power supply if it ran over 400 A. The cost of transformer replacement was in excess of $250,000, plus cabling, a new switchboard and other electrical support items.

Deterred by this significant cost, Clegg approached Energy Management Solutions Australia (EMS) to develop the best alternative solution. EMS was contracted to install live metering equipment to monitor the club’s electricity consumption and take appropriate corrective action when thresholds were close to being exceeded.

Local integration company, mySmart was then engaged to supply the logic control to the interface with the club’s existing electrical systems. mySmart uses the latest technologies, consultants and technicians to optimise buildings and outdoor environments so that they use less energy and resources, while simultaneously driving down ongoing operational costs.

Using mySmart technologies, EMS devised a system of live-load monitoring of the club’s electricity consumption in real time. When levels reach a critical point (i.e. 370-390 A), the club automatically ‘sheds’ some of the load by turning down the air conditioning or some lights to keep the power below the 400 A threshold and keep everything running.

The $33,000 project involved four components which are enabled by mySmart technology:

• Live metering of the switchboard onto a server, enabling the club to see how much power it is using at any one time. In addition to these real-time updates, the metering also provides a historical log of energy used.

• mySmart technology reads the energy being metered and sends signals when thresholds are met. For example, at 370 A, it sends a signal to the air conditioning to start switching off, and at 390 A further products such as lighting start to turn off.

• The last piece of technology provided by mySmart is attached to the infrastructure and is programmed to receive the signals and commence the load shedding.

• Text messages are sent every time load-shedding occurs, keeping management immediately informed and up-to-date.

The diagram shows that between 6.00 and 6.30 pm, stage one of load-shedding occurred three times, and at both 6.45 and 7.18 pm, stage two commenced. The aim of load-shedding is to keep power usage below 400 A.

In the short time since the EMS program was introduced, the club has had numerous occasions where load-shedding has been required. However, stage two has rarely been utilised and there has been no disruption to trade, with only minor discomfort to patrons for about an hour while stage two load-shedding was in place.

Clegg continued: “The program EMS and mySmart provided for us has not only saved us a significant amount of initial financial outlay, but has also been able to provide us with a better understanding of how we are using our power. This has also helped us save money on energy bills.

“Most importantly, however, our members know they can rely on us again to provide a quality service and always have our doors open when they should be.”