Dr Mohamed Azeem Khan, Senior Lecturer, Department of Electrical Engineering at UCT, has contributed to the advancement of industrial energy efficiency and renewable energy systems.
The country’s recent power crisis has highlighted the need for additional generation capacity and for the efficient use of available electricity resources. “In South Africa, motorised systems consume approximately 60% of the total electricity generated. Consequently, improvements in motor efficiency can yield significant energy savings,” says Khan.
Eskom has been providing incentives to industrial customers to retrofit standard motors with energy efficient (EE) motors but there are several significant power quality and performance issues with these EE and low-voltage induction motors. In collaboration with Eskom, Khan led a project that addressed some of the challenges.
The results provided an understanding of the impact of repairs on the efficiency of induction motors. His work on renewable energy systems offers new topologies and design methodologies for small wind generators. Khan says that a new configuration and support structure was designed, enabling a higher relative speed and thus higher power density.
“Approximately 40% of South Africa’s population is unemployed and, among this group, there are people that live in immense poverty and lack basic amenities such as electricity,” says Khan.
Provision of electricity is a problem due to locations beyond the reach of electricity grids, plus commercially-available small renewable energy systems are too expensive and complex for semi-skilled people to maintain and operate.
This article originally appeared in the Mail & Guardian newspaper as an advertorial supplement