The project aims at fostering capacity building in the field of Smart Grids by the development of a harmonized, modular curriculum. Envisioned outcomes of this project are new, interdisciplinary master courses implemented at partner institutions in Africa, running laboratories, online courses, and an improved networking between the partners.
For the student exchange a student from TU Dresden is at Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology. Her task is to assist with the development of learning and teaching material for the smart grid courses. The focus lays on practical lab task in data security and data protection in Smart Grid systems. This includes task such as, using the NM-AIST lab equipment to simulating different attack scenarios e.g. network traffic sniffing, man-in-the-middle attacks and power load analyses for user behaviour tracking.
A master’s student from Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology is visiting Stellenbosch University as one of the exchange students. She said: “what I am doing here in Stellenbosch is attending some courses on smart grid technology and renewable energy technology which are very essential for my research.”
Further, she is working on a smart grid based research on demand side management of electricity, whereby the demand management will be done on the forecasted data using different methods like time of use tariffs, direct load control, load shifting and energy efficiency. Currently, she is working on short term prediction of electricity demand.
A promotion article of the new MEng in Smart Grid at CPUT has been published in the latest issue of the the wattnow magazine (February 2019).
CPUT received a very essential part of the student laboratory, the real time power system simulator. Adding to the already existing laboratory equipment at CPUT this will enable the students to work on their projects with state-of-the-art technology. Our colleagues from CPUT already started setting up the equipment and the official hand-over and a lab presentation will be done during the next project meeting at CPUT in March 2019.
