The University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines is almost 400 years old and is the oldest existing university in Asia. With more than 30,000 students located on a single campus, it is also the world's largest Catholic university. During the course of its illustrious history, Santo Tomas has grown from a simple seminary to a world-class educational institution. The 18 buildings on the campus house a medical center; science, medical and engineering research facilities; and other educational structures.

Electricity became a major element in the university's operation in the 20th century, and this historic institution has successfully combined the old with the new by employing modern technologies to manage and maintain the reliability and cost of the electrical energy supplied to the site.

Between 1995 and 2000, power requirements for the university increased dramatically with the university's steady expansion of campus utilities and related infrastructures, such as new computer networks, a medical center, data centers and environmental control systems. This constantly increasing demand for power created an unacceptably high load on the substation that had been the university's main power distribution facility. The substation was owned and operated by the local Philippines utility, Meralco, the university's energy supplier for more than 20 years.

Following a major transformer failure in the mid-1990s, infrared analysis undertaken in 2000 showed critical system deterioration in the main oil circuit breaker that ultimately could have lead to a catastrophic power failure of the entire campus. This finding resulted in an urgent need to find an acceptable and economic solution.

The Solution

The university's building and grounds office, which is responsible for the maintenance, operation and overall management of all the campus facilities, was faced with the task of finding an effective solution as quickly as possible. University officials met with Meralco to identify possible solutions.

The university decided to build its own substation to provide electrical energy to the entire campus. By centralizing the power management functions, the university could negotiate preferential energy rates from Meralco. In exchange for the benefits from the new substation, namely, improved power reliability and system security, Meralco offered the university both primary and secondary discounts, amounting to an average of US$5000 per month.

New University Substation

The university's new substation was commissioned in September 2001. In addition to controlling the 34-kV primary line infeed from Meralco, the new substation had to provide:

• Improved power quality with increased reliability (reduced downtime).

• More accurate cost allocation and billing.

• Simplified maintenance and improved monitoring and control of the overall electrical system.

To achieve these goals, the building and maintenance staff requested the integration of an enterprise energy management (“EEM”) system into the new substation. Following considerable market research and comprehensive studies into the return-on-investment analysis, they chose ION technology from Power Measurement (British Columbia, Canada) as the backbone of the monitoring system.

Enterprise Energy Management System

The new fully automated monitoring and control system uses the combined capabilities of its ION energy management software and intelligent meters for power and energy usage metering, alarm monitoring, breaker status and control, and transformer temperature monitoring. The information it gathers is also used to schedule and conduct preventive maintenance of equipment, and to explain and correct transient conditions and anomalies within the university's electrical network that could cause service interruptions or equipment failures.

The EEM system consists of four ION 7700 and 19 ION 7330 meters in the main substation to monitor and control transformers and circuit breakers, and an additional 24 ION meters to monitor distribution points in medical, research and education buildings.

All the substation meters are connected via Ethernet to a central workstation, where all information is funneled into ION Enterprise, a software package that aggregates and analyzes data from multiple meter sources and acts as a central intelligence for the entire system.

Quick Emergency Response

The EEM system offers building and maintenance remote-management options, enabling quick response to emergency situations. For the University of Santo Tomas, immediate response is essential. Unscheduled and unpredicted interruptions can carry high costs, both financially through lost data in the research and education facilities, and potentially in lost lives at the medical center.

Centralized Billing

Centralized billing is another advantage of the monitoring system that is saving the university time and money. Using the 24 meters located in various facilities across the campus, building and maintenance staff can track the usage of each location and then translate this information into a bill to the appropriate department for the power used. As the meters communicate over Ethernet and all data are gathered into the software through remote metering, staff members no longer have to physically go out to the sub-metering locations to take readings (remote metering). The current system has been so successful that the university would eventually like to expand its sub-metering capabilities to eventually encompass all buildings and facilities on the campus.

Teamwork

The relationship between the university and Meralco also has derived substantial benefits from the EEM system. The accurate and reliable data gathered from the EEM system on power usage and events on campus have improved teamwork between the two organizations when it comes to solving problems. It also has made it possible for the university to pay less for its power because all billing information can now be easily verified. Additionally, it enables the building and maintenance staff to proactive troubleshoot, because they now have power-quality data that can provide insight into the system and system problems.

Continuing Innovations

The bottom line? This old, historical and veritable institution has enjoyed substantial service improvements as well as cost savings by employing this new-age technology, enabling new technologies and modern facilities on its campus. By adopting a proactive forward-thinking approach, the University of Santo Tomas has ensured that it will keep adding new accomplishments to its already long and illustrious history.

Oliver Gargarin received the BSEE degree from the Mapua Institute of Technology in 1991. He is currently the in-house electrical engineer for the University of Tomas in the Philippines.