Feasibility of the use of Solar Power in the Campus
The UAE University is the oldest, most prestigious, and is given the highest ranking amongst other Universities in the Gulf region. Founded in 1976 by late HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nayhan, it has the largest student population in the Gulf region and is designed to accommodate 16,500 students and 2,500 faculty and staff, (current student intake is 14,000, supported by 2,500 faculty and staff members).
As the UAE’s fl agship university, UAEU offers a full range of accredited, high-quality graduate and undergraduate programmes through nine colleges: Business and Economics; Education; Engineering; Food and Agriculture; Humanities and Social Sciences; IT; Law; Medicine and Health Sciences; and Science. With a distinguished international faculty, stateof- the art new campus, and full range of student support services, UAEU offers a living-learning environment that is unmatched in the UAE. The UAEU offers courses in Architectural Engineering (with a strong focus on sustainability), Civil & Environmental Engineering, Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Ecology and Environmental Sciences.
The College of Science at the United Arab Emirates University launched a ‘sustainability club’ in September 2016 encouraging students to participate in sustainability and spread awareness of the importance of environmental sustainability.
As part of a PPP agreement, Khadamat Facilities Management L.L.C., provides a range of services to the university including maintenance, cleaning, waste management, service desk, timetabling, IT and security services and each has its own degree of impacts on the environment. In a joint collaboration with the university, Khadamat has developed a strategic plan and vision that focuses on all sustainability aspects which vary from waste minimisation/reduction, resource, recovery and energy conservation to increasing awareness among staff and students. Since the year 2010, a number of energy saving programmes have been initiated to suit the energy-saving targets of small-scale retrofi ts; heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) controls; lighting and users programmes .
The UAEU has been with the Sustainable Campus Initiative (SCI) since inception and has participated in all the components of the initiative.
Project Overview
The basis of the project is to test the feasibility of collecting the substantial solar energy, which hits the surfaces of cars in parking lots but is currently not being utilised. The project has a dual purpose of providing modern infrastructure and creating a smart power grid. Parking lots are usually bigger than the buildings they serve, and usually have unobstructed solar access, so the solar panels can take advantage of the economies of scale in construction and can capture more of the available sunlight. This project addresses the following issues:
- Offer multipurpose solutions to the region’s searing heat.
- Create carbon free, clean energy.
- Reduce the heat island effects of parking lots around buildings.
- Provide energy faster than conventional power plants does.
Method
- The project team collected data about electricity consumption in the UAEU through interviews with the staff and faculty.
- Utilising remote sensing images and Geographic Information System (GIS) area maps generated to highlighti locations allowed the team to calculate the area of the parking zones.
- The team conducted a statistical analysis to organise data as well as calculate the costs of solar parking production and savings . Graphs and charts were generated to illustrate the results.
Key Outcomes and Learnings
- It was theorised from the research that the university can amend their zoning codes to require solar power in the parking lots of new buildings. Requiring a specific generating capacity, such as one kilowatt per parking space, will give developers the freedom to meet the requirement in the most cost effective way. (Covering one parking space with solar panels will produce about two kilowatts of generating capacity, so covering half the spaces in a parking lot will produce about one kilowatt per space. This translates to an 18% reduction of electricity costs.)
- Consultations with the Abu Dhabi Municipality taught the project team principles on how to develop sensors for the project along with other suggestions.
- This project was designed to be in line with the UAE Vision 2021 National Agenda which focuses on improving the quality of air, increasing the contribution of clean energy and implementing green growth plans.