Energy-saving applications advance in Smart competition
Complaints over increasing power and gasoline rates have propelled students from two schools to propose innovative ways to reduce power consumption and incur savings by using renewable, low-cost sources of energy.
The University of Baguio explores the conversion of mechanical energy from moving vehicles to electrical energy to power street lights, while the University of Southeastern Philippines proposes the use of hydrogen to fuel electric generator sets.
These earth-friendly and cost-saving entries are among the ten to advance into the final judging of the 7th SWEEP Innovation and Excellence Awards.
“Self-sustaining Street Lights with Wireless Monitoring System” is designed by a team of 5th year ECE students from the University of Baguio. The project aims to reduce the dependence of street lights on conventional electrical energy sources by generating its own electrical energy source from moving vehicles. It also features transmission of power stats through wireless communication.
“The project focuses on how to conserve energy consumed by street lights. The project implements electricity generation similar to windmills and hydroelectric plants based on the conversion of mechanical energy to electrical energy,” explains team leader Mark Joseph J. Calinao.
Members of the team include Angel John C. Galban, Jerry Dugui-es, Gestave Ray Pednga and Lance Christian Friedrich A. Llaneta, with teacher mentor Engr. Jeferd E. Saong.
The other energy-saving application is University of Southeastern – Philippines’ “Hydrogen Fueled Electric Generator”, an environmentally-friendly alternative to fuel-run generators. The project’s objective is to provide electricity in remote areas where transmission lines are impossible to deploy, to lessen fuel consumption and correspondingly, greenhouse gases production in the atmosphere. It is meant to benefit private individuals, electric companies and the government.
“We’ve included an application that will automatically send data like gas pressure in the tank, water level in the container and temperature via SMS to a pre-programmed mobile number. This will allow the engineer or the mobile phone owner to remotely monitor the generator set and if needed, shut it down,” said team leader Jonathan Louie Pondara.
John Arnold Reazon and Vic Ryan Limbago make up the rest of the team, with mentor Engr. Roberto Canda.
Like all entries submitted to this year’s competition, both projects are based on the theme “Empowering Communities through Wireless Technologies.” Our team wishes to provide a solution to the problem of insufficient electrical power sources and the increasing price of electric consumption resulting to outage of power sources. Aside from helping communities reduce the cost spent on the use of street lights, it will also provide motorists safe streets for travel,” adds Calinao.
The annual SWEEP Awards gathers student-participants from some 40 partner universities and colleges nationwide in a culmination activity highlighted by the awarding of winners.
Prizes this year include cash winnings for the top three teams, with corresponding grants for their respective schools. First prize is P500,000; second prize, P300,000; and third prize, P150,000.
Final judging includes an evaluation of the working prototypes of the wireless applications and presentations by the teams.
Also competing in the finals are the eight teams from Ateneo de Naga University, Ateneo de Zamboanga University, Batangas State University with two entries, Bulacan State University, Holy Cross of Davao College, Mapua Institute of Tecnology, and University of San Carlos.
The Awards is held by Smart Communications, Inc. as part of its Smart Wireless Engineering Education Program (SWEEP), a pioneering industry-academe partnership aimed at improving the quality of engineering and technology education in the country.
The UB Team (from left) Leader Mark Joseph J. Calinao, Angel John C. Galban, mentor Engr. Jeferd E. Saong,
Lance Christian Friedrich A. Llaneta, Jerry Dugui-es and Gestave Ray Pednga.
The USEP team (from left) Vic Ryan Limbago, team leader Jonathan Louie Pondara,
mentor Engr. Roberto Canda and John Arnold Reazon.
(Published 21 January 2011, Smart Communications, Inc.)