Banjo Ayoade Aderemi

Globally, groundwater is the largest distributed storage of freshwater and plays an important role in an ecosystem’s sustainability in addition to aiding human adaptation to both climatic change and variability. However, groundwater resources are dynamic and often change as a result of land usage, abstraction, as well as variation in climate. To solve these challenges, many conventional solutions, such as certain numerical techniques, have been proffered for groundwater modelling. The global evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) has enhanced the culture of data gathering for the management of groundwater resources. In addition, efficient data-driven groundwater resource management relies hugely on information relating to changes in groundwater resources as well as their availability. At the moment, some studies in the literature reveal that groundwater managers lack an efficient and real-time groundwater management system that is needed to gather the required data. Additionally, the literature reveals that the existing methods of collecting data lack the required efficiency to meet computational model requirements and meet management objectives. Unlike previous surveys, which solely focussed on particular groundwater issues related to simulation and optimisation management methods, this paper seeks to highlight the current groundwater management models as well as the IoT contributions.

Globally, groundwater is the largest distributed storage of freshwater and plays an important role in an ecosystem’s sustainability in addition to aiding human adaptation to both climatic change and variability. However, groundwater resources are dynamic and often change as a result of land usage, abstraction, as well as variation in climate. To solve these challenges, many conventional solutions, such as certain numerical techniques, have been proffered for groundwater modelling. The global evolution of the Internet of Things (IoT) has enhanced the culture of data gathering for the management of groundwater resources. In addition, efficient data-driven groundwater resource management relies hugely on information relating to changes in groundwater resources as well as their availability. At the moment, some studies in the literature reveal that groundwater managers lack an efficient and real-time groundwater management system which is needed to gather the required data. Additionally, the literature reveals that the existing methods of collecting data lack the required efficiency to meet computational model requirements and meet management objectives. Unlike previous surveys, which solely focussed on particular groundwater issues related to simulation and optimisation management methods, this paper seeks to highlight the current groundwater management models as well as the IoT contributions.

Over the years, sustainability, impact on the environment, as well as the operation expenditure have been a major concern to the deployment of mobile cellular base stations worldwide. This is because the mobile cellular base stations are known to consume a high percentage of power within the mobile cellular network. Such energy consumption contributes to the emission of Greenhouse Gases (GHG) through the use of conventional diesel generating a set. As a result, the mobile cellular operators are faced with the dilemma of minimising the power consumption, GHG emission, and the operation cost, while improving the Quality of Service of the networks. In attempting to find a solution, this study presents the feasibility and simulation of a solar photovoltaic (PV) with battery hybrid power system (HPS) as a predominant source of power for a specific mobile cellular base station site situated in Soshanguve area of the city of Pretoria, South Africa. It also presents the technical development, showed the environmental advantage and cost benefits of using a solar PV-battery HPS to power a base station site of a 24 hrs daily load of 241.10 kWh/d and the peak load of 20.31 kW as compared to using the HPS of solar PV-diesel generating set-battery. The solar resource pattern for the city of Pretoria was collected from The National Aeronautics and Space Administration and modelled statistically. Thus, the statistical modelling done using solar radiation resource exposure characteristic patterns of Pretoria, South Africa, revealed an average annual daily solar radiation of 5.4645 Wh/m2/d and 0.605 clearness index. The simulation and the design were done using the Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables and Matlab/Simulink software. The simulation finding shows that the HPS of solar PV-battery combination has about 59.62 % saving on Net Present Cost, Levelized Cost of Energy, and 80.87% saving on Operating cost as against conventional BS powered with Gen Set-Battery.

Over the years, sustainability and impact on the environment, as well as operation expenditure, have been major concerns in the deployment of mobile cellular base stations (BSs) worldwide. This is because mobile cellular BSs are known to consume a high percentage of power within the mobile cellular network. Such energy consumption contributes to the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) through the use of conventional diesel generating set (gen-set). As a result, mobile cellular operators are faced with the dilemma of minimizing the power consumption, GHG emissions, and operation cost, while improving the quality of service (QoS) of the networks. In attempting to find a solution, this study presents the feasibility and simulation of a solar photovoltaic (PV)/battery hybrid power system (HPS), as a predominant source of power for a specific mobile cellular BS site situated in the Soshanguve area of the city of Pretoria, South Africa. It also presents the technical development and shows the environmental advantage and cost benefits of using a solar PV/battery HPS to power a BS site with a 24 h daily load of 241.10 kWh/d and peak load of 20.31 kW as compared to using the HPS with a solar PV/diesel gen-set/battery. The solar resource pattern for the city of Pretoria was collected from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and was modeled statistically. The statistical modeling done using solar radiation resource exposure characteristic patterns of Pretoria, South Africa revealed an average annual daily solar radiation of 5.4645 Wh/m²/d and a 0.605 clearness index. The simulation and the design were done using Hybrid Optimization Model for Electric Renewables (HOMER) and Matlab/Simulink software. The simulation finding showed that the HPS of the solar PV/battery combination has about a 59.62% saving in the net present cost (NPC) and levelized cost of energy (LCOE) and an 80.87% saving in operating cost as against conventional BSs powered with a gen-set/battery.

Renewable energy systems based on solar resources are steering the way in grid-connected applications to meet present energy demands. This research work tends to investigate the design and feasibility of RE systems using solar resources to sustain a load in the Office Park building, at Constantia Kloof Roodepoort, Johannesburg, South Africa. This is following the provincial mandate to offset the energy usage of government buildings, including those belonging to the City of Johannesburg, by the installation of renewable energy sources in South Africa. The Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) on the design revealed that the fully solar RE system was the most economically possible. This was in comparison with the annual equivalent projected City Power electricity bill for the load profile.

As an energy storage device, battery technologies had evolved over the years from using a simple nickel-iron to the later superior technology of lead-acid. Furthermore, as the needs of the battery to store a large amount of energy grows, the manufactures of batteries have been compelled to manufacture superior hybrid batteries by combining different technologies with efficient battery management system. The hybrid battery technology using high-quality power electronics combines different but complimentary individual battery technologies into a single pack. However, there is a need to understand the individual characteristics of these batteries. This will not only make the battery to be safer, cost-effective, and more reliable but also predict accurately the condition of the battery units. By comparing their technical properties such as cost, efficiency, and life cycle, this paper discusses the overview of existing hybrid of battery technologies and how they can be managed in power and energy sectors.

The huge costs of operating a mobile cellular base station, and the negative impact of greenhouse gasses on the environment have made the solar PV renewable energy source a sought after. In addition to cost and environmental factor, abundant supply of solar radiation in Southern part of Africa, and the drive to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide by the year 2020 and to improve the quantity of power supply are also part of many incentives to power communication base station systems with solar PV cells. To this end, solar PV powered base stations have become important integration into a mobile cellular network. Thus, this article exploits the use of solar PV powered mobile cellular base station systems in South Africa. It was also found through this feasibility study that the country has a solar radiation between 4.5 kWh/m² and 6.5 kWh/m². Also found was that the use of solar PV cellular base station will lead to about 49 % reduction in operation cost compared to using the diesel generating sets. Therefore, this article, as a feasibility study, explore the use of solar energy capacity of South Africa towards powering the mobile cellular base station. This article will also contribute to research base, as there are few number of literature found on this topic in South Africa.

The paper seeks to design, test and implement a fast transfer scheme for an existing Alpha Olefins substation at Sasol Secunda, Mpumalanga Province, in South Africa. The aim of this design is to switch motor bus bars over to an intact back up supply should the main supply fail and to switch them back again when the main supply is restored. The switchover to the back up supply must be performed as quickly and as smoothly as possible to maintain operation and avoid undue stress on the motor shafts. Using all the specification for the switchover procedures required in Alpha Olefins substation, a fast transfer scheme was designed and tested. To achieve this, the normally open tie breaker was utilised. Included will be the panel design for the control circuits of both incomer panels and High-Speed Transfer Devices (HSTD), Intelligent Electronics Devices, (IEDs) with logics.