Value engineering supplies safe, affordable electricity for millions

Webinar looks at low voltage side of power distribution for burgeoning MEA region, defines comprehensive concept of 'value engineering' encompassing product design, production and distribution; making 'smart homes' affordable for millions

A webinar event last month put important attention on challenges related to the low-voltage side of power distribution to homes and businesses. It is where the quality of cables, switches and circuit breakers is critical for power management and distribution.

The unique challenges of making high quality, affordable electrical products available throughout the Middle East and Africa were brought into focus.

The Valentine’s Day webinar, called “Making electricity safe and accessible: insights from an award-winning electrical products manufacturer in ME&A,” was presented by Himel, produced by Informa Energy & Utilities. Himel is an award-winning value engineering brand of electrical products with operations in over 50 countries.

Two speakers looked at problems and solutions to safely and efficiently transmit energy, in power and control, in a burgeoning part of the world with growing demand for power.

Shrinivas Chebbi, who is Global Head of Himel Business, discussed his business philosophy and his comprehensive concept of value engineering for electrical products. Ameena Al Sumaiti, Associate Professor, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, at Khalifa University in Abu Dhabi, spoke about technology for smart homes insofar as this can enhance value for homeowners affordably.

Value engineering 

Shrinivas Chebbi spoke of value engineering as a mindset appropriate for a burgeoning part of the world, with an enormous demand for new housing, commercial and industrial structures, where billions of people require safe and affordable equipment for energy management.

He spoke of the great need for access to electricity and affordable housing. He also spoke of the loss of productivity that now results from unreliable power supply in manufacturing. He explained the evolution of his company in this context.

“Himel has brought value engineering to the centre stage of solving these key challenges,” he said, as he connected safe and affordable electricity supply directly to the issue of sustainability in emerging economies.

This led to his discussion of value engineering, which he said his company embraces very deeply. It essentially re-imagining the whole system, encompassing product design, production and distribution.

“Value engineering is the method by which you question every part and feature of a product, then look at it not from a designer or manufacturer’s point of view, but from the user or buyer’s point of view,” he said.

“This brings a designer of any electrical product to a very important decision: what are the negotiables in the technical specification of a product, and what are the non-negotiables?

“This is the core part of value engineering.”

He described how there needs to be ‘boundary wall’ around those non-negotiables that are absolutely required, including standards and quality of the raw material, quality of design, testing and compliance.

Chebbi then discussed the importance of a distribution network that makes such products widely accessible, in Africa and elsewhere.

“Accessibility, availability, reliability and affordability are the four key pillars of our business model, which is built around the value-engineered approach,” he said.

He referred specifically to the needs of builders working with ‘capex’ in a more broadly affordable range, rather than at the top end of markets. He described value engineering as an approach that works across broad families of products, including final distribution, power management, motor control and protection, industrial components, and home electric.

Chebbi presented information about his company’s manufacturing in China and discussed his perspective on product requirements for Africa. He also discussed home automation and smart devices, which are giving people increasing control over power monitoring and management.

Smart homes/smart cities

Dr. Ameena Al Sumaiti opened the topic of digital transformation in the power sector, providing findings from her recent research. She discussed the ‘smart home’ as a component of the ‘smart city,’ looking specifically at MEA markets.

She defined a smart home energy management system, including its main components.

“A smart home energy manager is the heart of a smart home,” she said.

“It offers occupants and the electricity authority the capability of monitoring, managing, and saving energy.”

She described how it works when integrated into a smart network. Much depends, she said, on customers’ knowledge and experience with residential energy management. The area of energy efficiency for appliances is especially critical.

She also looked at specific examples of hardware and software on the market today.

“If you look at the history of the development of energy management systems, many companies and products did not succeed in the market, but they were there for a few years” she said.

“They were stopped because there were not enough customers, and the products appeared too early.”

As part of the challenges today, she noted the high cost for purchasing and installing smart home components, and a long payback period. She went into detail on the technical challenges.

“Now the market has potential,” she said.

“The Wi-Fi 6 is expected to have impact on the smart home in comparison to the 5G, though the 5G is expected to be preferred if the goal is to reduce processing in the cloud,” she said.

The two speakers continued their discussion and received a few technical questions from the audience. The full 1-hour webinar may be viewed on-line. Webinars produced for Energy & Utilities are also available for download.