Energy Conservation of Three-Phase Induction Motors Through IoT-Enabled

Intelligent Operation Management System

Abdullah Sabir Fahad Ilyas

Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Information Technology University Information Technology University
Lahore, Pakistan Lahore, Pakistan
abdullahsabir36@gmail.com fahad.sultani27@gmail.com

Tauseef Tauqeer Muhammad Sohaib

Department of Electrical Engineering Department of Electrical Engineering
Information Technology University Information Technology University
Lahore, Pakistan Lahore, Pakistan
tauseef.tauqeer@itu.edu.pk muhammad.sohaib@itu.edu.pk

Abstract the blockage of wastewater in sanitation lines affecting the

daily life of citizens. To overcome this problem, sanitation
In this paper, we worked on the development of an IoT- organizations usually make disposal stations in different ar-
based, low-cost industrial solution for the Automatic op- eas of the city to push wastewater into drains that join into
eration of 10 (Three-Phase Induction) motors installed at a river and eventually end up in the sea. These huge dis-
the disposal station. Manual operation of a large num- posal stations have several large motors attached to pumps
ber of motors at the disposal station is a rigorous process that push water from the reservoir wells. These motors con-
that involves constant monitoring of wastewater levels in sume large amounts of energy and usually, they are operated
the wells and operating motors accordingly. The chance of manually. Moreover, the operator needs to verify the level
human error in this situation is high which also involves of wastewater in the well to operate motors accordingly. As
risk to the expensive machinery. The proposed solution a result of this, sometimes due to the negligence or human
provides contactless operation of motors hence keeping the error of the operator, motors are over-run in a dry condi-
wastewater in wells to their minimum level while reducing tion having no wastewater in the well. This not only causes
the load in sanitation lines. The system is also capable of harm to the installed machinery but also causes wastage of
Auto/Manual mode selection, monitoring the level of water a large amount of energy without giving any output. The
in wells through ultrasonic sensors, avoiding dry runs by proposed solution uses ultrasonic sensors to measure the ac-
operating the motors at an optimum level, and monitoring curate level of wastewater in the well to operate the number
the running status of motors. Moreover, all this data can of motors hence keeping the wastewater in the well to its
be visualized graphically on the web server for the required minimum level while reducing the load in sanitation lines.
date and time. The comparison of results before and after Section 2 presents the most relevant studies related to this
the installation of this system shows significant energy con- study. Section 3 describes the design and implementation of
servation results which make this system feasible to install the system and section 4 concludes the test results and vali-
at large facilities. dation of this system. Finally, some conclusions and future
works are given in Section V.
keywords: Automation, Motor, Wastewater Level, Ul-
trasonic Sensor, Monitoring, Automatic, Energy Saving. 2. Related Work

1. Introduction The authors in [2], designed an IoT system to respond

to temperature sensors via Arduino. They used the Xively
Disposing wastewater from the city through drains is a platform to visualize the uploaded data, and then the data
key requirement for any sanitation organization. However, was downloaded by using the formalism of Petri nets from
if proper disposal arrangements are not done, it results in the cloud to PLC through the OPC server and Lab View.
In [10], the authors implemented an IoT network to monitor an IoT-mobile-enabled smart water level controlling system
several industrial parameters like energy, D.C-motor speeds to regulate water wastage. It reduces the wastage of water
controlling, PLC-based liquid level, and PLC-based color by monitoring the level of water in the overhead tank with
mixer by IoT. In [4], Author used IoT to monitor the ICRH Arduino as a microcontroller and ultrasonic sensor to mon-
DAC system. They use Experimental Physical Industrial itor the level of water. The system intimates the user to turn
Control System (EPICS) as an interface between PLC and on or turn off the motor using their mobile phone app.
computer for the design of web pages, they used HTML5 A team of researchers in [5], developed a solution for
CSS, and for Graphical User Interface (GUI) they used CSS the monitoring of water levels in tanks. The system uses a
BOY OPI. wireless sensor to keep track of the water level and triggers
The authors in [3] introduced IoT to control and monitor an alert for the user if the water level is below a thresh-
the factory of a stack of pucks. They used PLC, Node-red old level or empty. Using the android application, the user
and MQTT protocol to connect with two platforms (Ubidots can disable and enable the notifications. However, when
IBM) and then made a comparison for their latency. The au- the tank is empty, the sensor sends a notification to the user
thors in [11], developed a prototype for a smart home sys- and an email to the respective water company to refill the
tem to monitor and control some of the home appliances by water tank on time. Although there are many available so-
IoT. They used Arduino and ESP8266 for the Wi-Fi con- lutions, they are compromised in one way or the other. The
nection. The authors in [6] introduced the IoT system with proposed solution in this paper aims to provide a low-cost
real-time monitoring of the water level of the river. They industrial IoT-based solution that is not only used just for a
made an alarm message to the cloud server in addition to prototype but adds value to the system through energy con-
social media. They used Arduino with an ultrasonic water servation .
level sensor in their proposed system.
The Authors in [1], introduced a digital PLC system re- 3. Methodology
mote access based on android for remote access control The increasing population of Lahore city is giving rise
and supervising the temperature process managed by the to basic sanitation and wastewater problems. One of the
PID controller. The researchers in [7] designed and imple- major wastewater problems is its disposal from the main
mented a sensor system to be used in IoT for environmental city to outskirt areas. For this purpose, sanitation compa-
conditions and home power management monitoring. The nies require many large disposal stations which pump this
system proposed an approach for safety and comfort when wastewater into drains with the help of large motors. Firstly,
residents are away from home for a long time. A proto- this wastewater is accumulated in large tanks after passing
type of IoT based system for monitoring and controlling through screening films. Secondly, the operator manually
the water level system for the smart village was proposed. turns on the available number of motors, according to the
The proposed system comprises the water level analog sen- level of wastewater in the tanks. In this way, the tank level
sor and Arduino UNO controller along with the Arduino is maintained to its lowest. Keeping a track of wastewater
shield. The authors submitted a water quality monitoring levels in these tanks and operating the motors according to
system in real-time. They implemented a prototype low- the level is one of the real-world problems that has taken the
cost, smart water monitoring for measuring essential wa- attention of many in the industry.
ter parameters such as pH, turbidity, conductivity and mea- The constant monitoring of level with an ultrasonic sen-
sured the water level of the sample. The proposed system sor that requires accuracy and precision is one of the big
used TI CC3200 as the main controller connected to the In- challenges as the machinery that is controlled completely
ternet through hotspot Wi-Fi. The literary survey concluded based on it.It is very costly and requires careful handling.
the importance of the use of IoT technology. However, this Additionally, when it comes to wastewater monitoring of
paper combined the IoT and artificial intelligence (Fuzzy) two large tanks that involve ten motors rating 175hp each,
along with the use of an industrial controller represented by the problem becomes more challenging. Our system aims
PLC. As a result, this combination led to an efficient control to bridge the gap related to the individual’s inability to con-
system in addition to the benefit of power saving. trol these large numbers of motors. The simulated model
The authors in [8], submitted an IoT-based smart wa- of two big reservoirs and the number of motors installed is
ter tank monitoring and controlling of the motor with an shown in Fig1.
android application. They used ESP-8266 as a microcon- The architecture of our system is designed in such a
troller. The values of maximum and minimum levels are ob- way that motors can be operated in both Auto and manual
tained by ESP from the Firebase cloud. These values are set modes. This feature will allow the operator to intervene and
from the android app. The current level of water is obtained operate any motor out of 10 on manual mode depending on
from the ultrasonic sensor. Depending upon these values, its need. The system architecture is further explained in Fig
the motor is turned on or off. The authors in [9], developed 2.
 shown in Fig 3.

Figure 3. Onsite Screen Visualization

The web application layer allows the user to visualize

the information in the form of simulated models, graphs, ta-
bles, and reports. One of the major features that are offered
Figure 1. Simulated model of disposal station by this automation system is that it can generate alarms in-
dicating abnormal operating conditions i.e., alarm for tank
level too low, alarm for tank level too high, and alarm if sup-
ply from WAPDA grid and generator are both absent. The
operational status of all 10 motors and the level of wastew-
ater in both tanks are shown in a time-based graph in Fig
4. The graph clearly shows that each motor was operated
for around 1 hour and then switched to the next, ensuring
that the load is divided on all motors. This not only reduces
the maintenance routines of motors but also increases their
life as they get plenty of time for rest after 1 hour of op-
eration. Added to this, the level of wastewater in the tank
Figure 2. System Architecture remains in the range of 8 ft to 3 ft which is the first set point
programmed.

The overall system presented here is subdivided into

three layers of system architecture: the physical layer, the
service layer, and the presentation layer. The physical layer
consists of sensor nodes and communication technologies.
At this layer, the data is collected and sent to the service
layer. The service layer plays an important role in the sys-
tem architecture. The application/business logic is imple-
mented here. It also stores collected data for future use.
Additionally, this layer also provides various tools for data
analytics.
The uppermost layer is the presentation layer which is
further divided into two layers: onsite screen visualization
and web application. The onsite screen visualization allows Figure 4. Web Application
users to see the running status of motors through indication
lights on the HMI screen. The tank levels are also shown by The water-related system is categorized as an industrial
the two tanks with graphical and numerical data. Moreover, system, so it requires more care in providing suitable de-
the setpoints for the level at which motors operate and the vices that serve this task. The most important thing to con-
number of operational motors at each level can be set using sider while selecting these devices is their reliability. As
the HMI screen. Added to this, the status of the electricity a result of this, we have chosen PLC from Fatek company
source is also monitored and shown on the HMI screen as as the main controller for our system. It has 16 digital in-
puts, 12 digital outputs, 2 analog inputs, and 2 analog out- Loop Type Min Value(ft) Max Value( ft)
puts. The analog module for both input and output can be Single Motor 6 8
used as voltage or current type signals as it supports both Two Motors 10 13
modes. Additionally, as this system needs to be deployed Three Motors 14 16
in industrial conditions, an appropriate design opted could All Motors 17 -
withstand the industry environment. For this reason, the
system was integrated into a suitable PVC panel of IP65 Table 1. Motors Operational Setpoint Value.
rating, to protect it against the sprinkle of water, dust, and
humidity as shown in Fig 5. Year/Month Units(KWH) Electricity Cost (PKR)
May-20 1,50,000 26,34,000
Jun-20 1,18,000 20,72,080
Jul-20 1,56,000 27,39,360
Aug-20 1,42,000 24,93,520
Sep-20 1,38,000 24,23,280
Total 7,04,000 1,23,62,240
Average 1,40,800 24,72,448

Table 2. Electricity Usage of Disposal Station Before Efficient

Operation.

The system is categorized in such a way that each wastew-

ater tank is mounted with a separate ultrasonic sensor and
linked with 5 motors. The number of motors that will oper-
ate on Auto mode is linked with the total available motors
on Auto mode and the current loop type. Each loop type has
a range of setpoint values as shown in table 1. For example,
in the single motor loop, when the sensor reads the level
in the range of 6 ft to 8 ft, only 1 motor will operate and
dispose of the wastewater from the tank. The motor will
stop once the level drops just above the dry running point
which is 3.5 ft or its running time exceeds 1 hour. When
the running time of the motor exceeds 1 hour then the other
available motor on the auto mode will take its place, and the
operation will continue similarly. A similar logic is imple-
mented on both tanks as shown in Table 1.
Figure 5. System deployed in IP65 panel
4. Results and Discussion
Local control of motors is implemented through control The disposal station is evaluated on the bases of electric-
push buttons and a selector switch for change over between ity consumption before and after the installation of our de-
Auto and Manual operation. When the selector switch of veloped system. The values for electricity consumption are
any motor is in the Manual position, the operator present on taken after the comparison between the electric meter in-
site can control this motor through the start and stop push stalled by the local utility supply company and a redundant
buttons on the motor control unit (MCU). However, when private electric meter installed by the sanitation company.
the selector switch of any motor is in an Auto position, the Table 2 shows the number of units consumed by all 10
system receives a signal from the selector switch. That par- motors and their electricity cost before the implementation
ticular motor is controlled by the system depending on the of efficient management operation. The per month average
level of wastewater in the well. Moreover, regardless of units consumed for five months comes out to be 140,800.
the position of the selector switch, the running status of all Additionally, the per month average electricity cost for five
motors and the level of wastewater in both tanks are contin- months was PKR 24,72,448.
uously monitored by an IoT-enabled ESP-32 controller and
sent to the cloud server for data reporting.
 Year/Month Units Electricity Cost / PKR
May-21 1,02,000 1,791,120
Jun-21 1,14,000 2,001,840
Jul-21 1,32,000 2,317,920
Aug-21 1,38,000 2,423,280
Sep-21 1,36,000 2,388,160
Total 6,22,000 109,22,320
Average 1,24,400 21,84,464

Table 3. Electricity Usage of Disposal Station After Efficient Op-

eration.

Table 3 shows the number of units consumed by all 10 Figure 7. Comparison of average electricity cost per month
motors and their electricity cost after deploying the system
for efficient management operation. A noticeable change
was observed in the per month average unit consumption.
The average was calculated for the period of the same five
months in the next year to keep other parameters constant.
The per month average units and average electricity cost
come out to be 1,24,400 and PKR 21,84,464 respectively.

Figure 8. Quarterly Unit/KWh Saving Projection

Electricity Units which costs around 3.5 million PKR. Our

deployed system has already followed the projected savings
for 5 months accurately.

Figure 6. Comparison of average Unit(KWh) consumption per

month

The comparison of per month average units and elec-

tricity cost before and after the deployment of our system
clearly shows a decrement. A total of 11.65% savings is
noticed in just electricity cost that is based on the number
of units consumed. To be more precise, the average per
month units saved are 16,400, and the average per month
electricity cost saved is PKR 287,984 as shown in Figure
6 and Figure 7. The other linked savings include wear and
tear cost, maintenance cost, and operational cost that is also Figure 9. Quarterly Cost Saving Projection
indirectly saved by our system.
Quarterly projection of the number of units and electric- This is a significant amount of energy and cost that can
ity cost saved is also shown in Figure 8 and Figure 9 be- be saved by sanitation companies across the country. En-
low. The projected saving for 1 year is around 0.2 million ergy conservation like this will not only enable these com-
panies to put less load on the national grid but also become [7] Andri Setiawan, Samuel Julius Sahat, Luki B Subekti,
profitable by reducing their expenses. Yoanes Bandung, and Kusprasapta Mutijarsa. Design and
implementation of iot sensor system for home power man-
5. Conclusion ager and environment condition monitor. In 2018 Inter-
national Symposium on Electronics and Smart Devices (IS-
Managing a large facility like a disposal station is a real ESD), pages 1–6. IEEE, 2018. 2
challenge for sanitation companies. Additionally, operat- [8] Priyen P Shah, Anjali A Patil, and Subodh S Ingleshwar. Iot
ing 10 large 3-phase induction motors manually, which also based smart water tank with android application. In 2017
involves monitoring the wastewater wells is a rigorous pro- International Conference on I-SMAC (IoT in Social, Mobile,
Analytics and Cloud)(I-SMAC), pages 600–603. IEEE, 2017.
cess. This also involves the chances of human error that can
2
cause damage to the expensive machinery. However, the
[9] Siddartha Shankar and M Dakshayini. Iot-mobile en-
IoT enabled the intelligent operation of motors can save a
abled smart water level controlling system to regulate wa-
significant amount of energy, cost assets, and time. More- ter wastage. In 2018 International Conference on Advances
over, the data available on the cloud is also useful for gen- in Computing, Communications and Informatics (ICACCI),
erating reports, alarms, notifications, and making decisions pages 2045–2048. IEEE, 2018. 2
for the future. [10] Komal S Shinde and Prachi H Bhagat. Industrial process
monitoring using lot. In 2017 International Conference
6. Acknowledgement on I-SMAC (IoT in Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud)(I-
SMAC), pages 38–42. IEEE, 2017. 2
We are really grateful to National Center of Robotics [11] Himanshu Singh, Vishal Pallagani, Vedant Khandelwal, and
and Automation for taking such initiative and providing us U Venkanna. Iot based smart home automation system us-
the platform where we carried out research and develop- ing sensor node. In 2018 4th International Conference on
ment activity. The prototype couldn’t be completed without Recent Advances in Information Technology (RAIT), pages
the efforts of team members, noteworthy supervisors who 1–5. IEEE, 2018. 2
guided through the research process in industrial monitor-
ing and automation lab. With out the support of peers and
collaborators it would have been difficult to achieve the re-
search objectives.

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