DETERMINATION OF THE BEST FITTING ENERGY MIX AND DEMAND SIDE MANAGEMENT OPTIONS FOR DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING AS A CASE STUDY WITHIN  UNIVERSITY OF MORATUWA

Department of Mechanical Engineering overall

 

As a Department of University of Moratuwa, Mechanical engineering department has several areas which consume electrical energy for the day to day operations. Those areas can be classified as Office areas, Laboratory areas and others like wash room, corridors etc. These areas basically consume energy for Air conditioning, Machines, lighting and other electrical equipments. According to the results of the analysed data the 60% of total energy consumption of department is consumed by Air conditioning systems which is mostly consist in office areas and few in laboratory areas also.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Electrical energy balance of department of mechanical engineering results shows most of the energy consume by office areas and it is almost same as laboratory energy consumption. By looking the results of electrical energy breakdown for laboratory shows, most of the energy consumes laboratories like automation lab, metrology lab, CNC workshop, cad lab except machine lab have air conditioning systems.  That clearly shows the significant influence of air conditioning systems for energy consumption of department. Normally office areas and some laboratories like automation, metrology, cad and CNC lab always used air conditioning systems in order to full fill required conditions.

Therefore air conditioning is key area that should need to significantly focus in order to save energy consumption of mechanical engineering department.   Mechanical engineering department in university of moratuwa mainly consist of split type air conditioning systems in order to supply required air conditioning demand in department. Use separate air conditioning systems in order to full fill air conditioning requirement could lead to increase energy consumption. And also according to the observed data in audit lot of air conditioning systems are old. Therefore it should also lead to higher energy consumption of air conditioning.

The 28% of the energy consumption of mechanical engineering department has utilised by machines that operate in laboratories. It is also significant amount of total energy consumption in mechanical engineering department. Use old machineries in laboratories and ideal time of the machineries might be caused for that.

Lighting & other electrical equipment consume about 12% of the total energy consumption of the mechanical engineering department. There are already consist with CFL and fluorescent tube lights which have considerably lower energy consumption than incandescent bulbs. But during the audit observed that there are lot of opportunities to reduce light levels for some specific areas and will be able to use other special lighting systems in order to reduce energy consumption for lighting. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Electrical energy break down for Laboratory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When comparing the energy breakdown for laboratory of Department  of Mechanical Engineering University of Moratuwa ,It's obvious that major electrical energy consumptions units are CNC workshop (24%) ,Machine shop (19%) , Automation Lab(18%) ,CAD lab (14%)  and Metrology Lab(12%) . When going through energy audit there are many factors affect each and every system of those units.