UBD, IBM drive smarter energy research initiatives

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BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: IBM announced yesterday a new research agreement with Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD) to explore smarter ways to conserve and consume energy in the country IBM said it will collaborate with UBD to better understand energy usage and supply in buildings to enable efficient allocation of resources and distribution of power, Borneo Bulletin reported.

IBM Said researchers will design smarter energy solutions liar homes, communities and grids in Brunei.

With the engagement, UBD and IBM intend to explore how a variety of long-term and dynamic factors affect energy consumption patterns. Long-term factors include building materials and the geometry of buildings while dynamic factors involve smart sensing and analytics, persuasive user-interfaces and incentives and dynamic energy ratings of appliances.

Based on analytics, algorithms for optimal real-time energy monitoring and storage management will be investigated to help make homes greener. In addition, the research will model load flow in Brunei’s grid, and study phenomena like “power swing” that leads to blackouts, to enable the grid to be more reliable.

This research will play a vital role in capacity and skills development of Bruneians, to support Brunei Darussalam’s Vision 2035 of a dynamic and knowledge-driven natural resources-based economy IBM stated.

“Effective energy policies and planning are vital. This includes ensuring that the financial technical capability, infrastructure and skills are made available, and all this takes time to establish. Research and development needs to be part and parcel of this growth potential,” Pehin Datu Singamanteri Colonel (Rtd) Dato Seri Seta (Dr) Haji Mohammad Yasmin bin Haji Umar, the Minister of Energy at the PM’s Office was quoted as saying.

IBM said to collaboration builds upon the ongoing relationship between IBM Research and UBD which has seen the two partners engaged in integrated, high resolution, national-scale modelling research in involving weather modelling, climate modelling, flood forecasting, crop modelling, and renewable energy modelling in the region.

“Our collaboration with UBD has already witnessed significant progress in identifying some of Brunei’s natural resource modelling challenges, and we expect the relationship to continue to develop new insights into how Brunei can use energy more efficiently. We are glad to partner with UBD in this new research engagement,” Ramesh Gopinath, Director, IBM Research – India was quoted as saying.

“By combining education and innovation, UBD can help strengthen the local infrastructure, maintain a sustainable economy and improve quality of life.”

IBM stated that the UBD-IBM Centre has been instituted to serve as a catalyst to help UBD to be amongst the Top 50 ranked universities in Asia by 2015. To support this research, a Blue Gene/P Supercomputer (the first in the Asean region) has been installed in UBD and actively used by UBD-IBM Centre researchers.