Journal of Emerging Trends in Engineering and Applied Sciences: Research Areas

Abstract:
For a society to develop, individual needs to focus on solving specific problems and this can only be achieved through application of knowledge. Capacity building involves acquisition of relevant knowledge, skills and resources for the attainment of greater outcomes. Preserving electricity has become progressively significant as energy rates and shortages have increased. This research focused on the design and implementation an electrical power wastage manager as an enhancer for human capacity building. Individual could be developed technologically with the required knowledge and skills provided in this paper, thereby making them employers of labour in the development of controlling devices. The wastage of electrical power cannot be ignored in homes and offices as many lighting bulbs, street-lights, electrical fans are always ON even when not in use. One of the principal problems is attitude to always ON these electrical appliances when needed and OFF when not in use. In the ideal case, the electrical appliances should be switched OFF when not in use, but the real case in the society showed that electrical appliances such as electric bulbs and fans are always ON from the morning to the night thereby causing electrical power wastage. Humans are prone to forget things easily. The society is characterized with electrical power wastage. However, the motivation for this research was to curtail the electrical power wastage and reduce high cost of electricity. This research was designed to control ON and OFF time of any electrical appliance connected to its output. The objective of this research was to control the ON and OFF state/time of an electric bulb. The design included a microcontroller (LPC3200) that was programmed to achieve the timing operation; Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) displayed the ton(Time ON) and the t0ff(Time OFF); four buttons were used to set the hour and the minutes; and the relay was activated whenever the time set elapses, causing the load (electrical appliance) connected to its output to be energized/dis-energized automatically. The developed system accommodated five timing plans for each day in a week. A time of 16:30 in GMT was set to test the ON switching. An electric bulb connected to the developed system was activated at exactly 16:30. Also, a time 18:46 was set to de-activate the already ON electric bulb. The electric bulb was switched OFF at exactly 18:46.

Keywords: Electrical Power, Manager, Wastage, Implication, and Human Capacity

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