Brisbane wins Smart Grid City Model competition

The University of Queensland entry was the winner of ABB's Smart Grid City Model competition for university engineering students, launched earlier this year.

ABB challenged the future leaders in engineering to get creative and demonstrate how they would design an interactive smart grid city model and integrate smart grid technology into an Australian city of their choice.

The winner secured a grant to construct their Brisbane city vision model to be displayed at ABB’s upcoming Automation and Power World Australia event at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre in Queensland.

The university competition was introduced to help enhance the skills of students by introducing them to the power and automation technologies they may work with in the future. At the close of submissions, each Smart Grid City Model entry was reviewed by an ABB judging panel that analysed their concepts including design and aesthetics, proposed use of smart grid technologies as well as overall construction feasibility.

[Pictured alongside (L-R): Professor Tapan Saha with students Henry Wang and John Puckett, in front of their winning smart grid city concept for Brisbane.]

Axel Kuhr, manager of ABB in Australia said, “The judging panel was impressed with the high quality of all of the entries, but it was University of Queensland’s submission which stood out and we are proud to showcase it for customers and guests at Automation and Power World Australia in October.

"Their design demonstrated through model concept and simulation how smart grids could deliver Brisbane a stable, secure, efficient and sustainable power network.

“What we did find very exciting was the envisioned future for the city of Brisbane outlined by the students. Their greener and smarter city concept was inspiring with the introduction of distributed energy resources utilising renewable energies, storage, electric vehicles and active houses.

"ABB’s efficient HVDC and Flexible Alternating Current Transmission Systems (FACTS) technologies along with automated substations, dynamic pricing, advanced metering infrastructure and real time communication which are essential to a smart electricity grid were incorporated in the submission.”

The winning entry was prepared by University of Queensland students John Puckett and Henry Wang with Professor Tapan Saha acting as the supervisor. Saha said, “This was an excellent opportunity for the students to immerse themselves in a real-world future application."

Automation and Power World (APW) Australia is a two-day conference with a 1500 square metre exhibition and will host presentations, demonstrations and panel sessions with a range of international experts from across ABB and local industry.

The key themes to be addressed at APW include grid reliability, industrial productivity, energy efficiency, renewable energy and lifecycle management.