Real-time monitoring of energy infrastructure

Many legacy infrastructures are reaching the end of their service life. The necessary replacement of this infrastructure creates an opportunity to replace them with environmental and innovative systems. In this paper, a Smart Energy Micro Grid (SEMG) simulator is developed to model thermal energy alternatives for a large Canadian university. The simulator allows real-time resource management using hourly historical operational data. To meet the campus thermal requirements, SEMG system considers heat pumps, cogeneration powered by bio-fuels and excess to offset traditional natural gas fuel sources. All technologies take advantage of real-time management of electricity to reduce Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Three modeling scenarios are constructed, showing that fuel costs can be reduced by 43%, GHG emissions reduced by 68% and overall energy consumption reduced by 29%. The simulator is a first step in integrating all critical infrastructures into a SEMG paradigm.