A Wimax-Zigbee Energy Management System for Green Education
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Smart Grid and Renewable Energy, 2011, 2, 338-348 doi:10.4236/sgre.2011.24039 Published Online November 2011 (http://www.SciRP.org/journal/sgre) A WiMAX-ZigBee Energy Management System for Green Education Hoi Yan Tung1*, Kim Fung Tsang1, Ka Lum Lam1, Hoi Ching Tung1,2, Rong Jian Zheng1, King Tim Ko1, Loi Lei Lai2,3 1Department of Electronic Engineering, City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China; 2School of Engineering & Mathematical Science, City University London, London, United Kingdom; 3State Grid Energy Research Institute, Beijing, China. Email: *[email protected] Received July 12th, 2011; revised July 23rd, 2011; accepted July 30th, 2011. ABSTRACT A WiMAX-ZigBee energy management system for green education has been developed. The system helps to resolve the disgusting environmental problems. This paper explores the concept of energy management and introduces an Energy Management System located at campus areas. Analysis shows that 30% energy can be saved from the total energy con- sumption which translates to a saving of 72 thousand million kWh of energy annually. Such saving reduces 48 million tons of CO2 emission for the environment. Keywords: Energy Management, Minimizing CO2 Generation, WiMAX, ZigBee, Green Education 1. Introduction computer artificial intelligent software for energy con- sumption optimization. Since PoweLine communication Recently researchers have been looking for the possibili- was involved in most of energy management system ty of energy sources other than coal, oil and natural gases proposal, Kelly and his colleagues had conducted per- [1] since these natural resources are expected to deplete formance and reliability experiments in actual residential after decades. The energy crisis will remain unsolved un- environments using the CEBus standard [5]. In order to less an efficient approach has been used. Instead of seek- merge the home area network to internet, Inoue and his ing new energy sources, the current energy consumption team members had delivered the design of gateway con- has to be well managed in order to alleviate energy prob- lems. Alternative methods generating electricity are proved troller and network architecture of second generation of to be inefficient as the corresponding resources will be energy management system which combined the tech- depleted. Fundamentally, the principal method is to man- nology of internet and PowerLine communication [6-7]. age the efficiency of energy usage. Apart from PowerLine communication, Lien and his Energy management is originally is an add-on feature partners put their effort on developing a wireless solution of home automation. In [2], Gutzwiller and his col- (fusion of GSM and Bluetooth) for third generation en- leagues presented the first generation of home area net- ergy management system [8]. Unfortunately, the pro- work, Homenet enabled wide range of features such as posed wireless energy management system supported on-off remote controls, energy management, security, en- eight appliances only due to the limitation of Bluetooth. tertainment module coordination, and clock synchroniza- The recent technology breakthrough of wireless sensor tion by using telephone system and PowerLine commu- network has repositioned the development of energy nication technology. Until 1983, Matty proposed a first management system. ZigBee is a global protocol stan- energy management system using telephone and Power- dard for short range communication which is developed Line communication which was originally aimed at pro- for home automation, energy management, remote moni- viding the timely dynamic pricing information to the end toring and building automation. With mesh capability, user site in order to achieve the demand side manage- ZigBee supports up to 65000 nodes in a single network ment [3]. To further investigate the complete design of and expands the ability energy management from an the energy management system for utility load manage- apartment to a building or even a campus. ment, Wacks [4] pinpointed the importance of personal In this investigation, an energy management system Copyright © 2011 SciRes. SGRE A WiMAX-ZigBee Energy Management System for Green Education 339 based on WiMAX & ZigBee Energy Management WiZEM Table 1. System components description. is proposed for campus with multiple buildings. The sys- Component Description tem fuses the next generation wireless communication te- chnologies, ZigBee [9] and WiMAX [10,11], to provide A novel controllable electrical socket ZigBee socket replacing traditional socket for power campus-wide coverage for energy management system. supply of facility and equipment ZigBee is suitable for short-range transmission within buildings and WiMAX is the best candidate for transmis- A novel controllable electrical switch Zigbee switch replacing traditional switch for power sion between buildings. This combination of ZigBee and supply of facility and equipment WiMAX is referred as the WiZEM system. Not only Various types of sensors for measuring green education is cultivated, students also experience ZigBee sensor the environmental conditions such as the next generation wireless technologies. The support by temperature, luminance, humidity, etc Alternative control of the ZigBee fuzzy intelligence also helps monitoring energy con- ZigBee remote control sumption. In the mean time, the message of energy man- socket for staff and porter agement concept is conveyed. Green education is receiv- A ZigBee agent enabling bidirectional communication between sockets, ing increasingly emphasis in education, and hence the ZigBee Room agent switches, sensors and energy proposed WiZEM system serves to receive the most im- management server. pact for green campus. This paper is organized as fol- A terminal providing bi-directional lows: the system design is discussed in Section 2, and the WiMAX-ZigBee gateway conversion between ZigBee and Wi- system architecture is discussed in Section 3, the analysis MAX packets and performance evaluation is performed in Section 4. A computer system with user interface Energy management The conclusion is drawn in Section 5. and artificial intelligence monitoring all server WiMAX-ZigBee gateways 2. WiZEM Design Overview The target users for the proposed energy management server. Apart from data collection, the front end subsys- system are teaching staffs and students. A series of com- tem executes the control command from users as well as ponents are designed for respective users and are listed in the backend system. The use of ZigBee sockets and light Table 1. With the use of ZigBee and WiMAX, the cov- switches further consolidates the energy saving concept erage area can be broadened to the whole campus area by managing the power supply. As the socket and the with a number of buildings. Moreover, the absence of light switch are specially designed for energy manage- wirings saves much deployment costs. The performance ment, key functions including record of energy consump- is also enhanced by these wireless technologies through tion details and scheduling of supplying period are de- collaboration with different roles in the system. The sys- vised. The system deploys the sockets and the switches tem design is defined primarily by the wireless technolo- throughout the campus instead of using traditional sock- gies used. ets and switches. The consumption details in every socket 2.1. Rationale to Use Wireless Technology and switches are available for monitoring. In addition, the ZigBee sensors are used as a scout to After categorizing the wireless technologies used, the detect environmental conditions. By placing ZigBee sen- proposed system can be described as a three-tier structure sors (temperature, light intensity and humidity) at appro- comprising three levels, namely, the ZigBee Device priate locations, these real-time indoor conditions opti- (front end subsystem), the ZigBee room agent and Wi- mize the use of air-conditioners and lightings. Unneces- MAX-ZigBee Gateway (Communication Infrastructure) sary consumption can be avoided after the adjustment by as well as the energy management server (Backend sys- fuzzy intelligence [12] in the control center. The under- tem). The conceptual diagram is shown in Figure 1 and lying principles to work out the above features are based the tier structure of system components are shown in on the salient properties of ZigBee. Once a request is Table 2. detected by the switch or the socket, the switch/socket 2.1.1. Front End Subsystem forwards the request as a ZigBee packet to the room The front end subsystem consists of the ZigBee compo- agent and relay to the energy management server via a nents listed shown in Table 1. These includes sockets, WiMAX-ZigBee gateway for processing. ZigBee is a switches and remote controls. The system collects infor- wireless personal area network WPAN standard of IEEE mation such as energy consumption, room temperature, 802.15.4 [9]. It has some distinctive characteristics of humidity etc. for the operation of energy management short-range transmission and low data rate. An outstand- ing feature for energy management is the amazingly low *The support from CC Technology Ltd. is gratefully acknowledged. energy consumption with an extended life-span over Copyright © 2011 SciRes. SGRE 340 A WiMAX-ZigBee Energy Management System for Green Education Figure 1. System design in campus. Table 2. System components with tier design. years. Furthermore, over 65000 ZigBee devices can be re- gistered within a single network.