PROJECT PROPOSAL

1. Project Title:
[ DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION OF AUTOMATIC CHANGE OVER FOR DOMESTIC
FACILITY INTEGRATION WITH HIGH-TECH COMMUNICATION]

2. Project Objective:
Power failure or outage in general does not promote development to public and private sector.
The investors do not feel secure to come into a country with constant or frequent power failure.
These limit the development of industries. In addition there are processes that cannot be interrupted
because of their importance, for instance surgery operation in hospitals, transfer of money between
banks and lots more. The objective is to design and construction of an automatic power changeover
switch that switches power supply from public supply to generator once there is public power supply
outage and it does this automatically. This is achieved by the use of integrated circuits that have
timing abilities and relays to effect switching. This paper presents the design and implementation of an
automatic changeover (with step loading) for renewable energy systems. The microcontroller based
automatic changeover consists of power supply circuit consisting of step-down transformer, rectifier (full
wave bridge), filter capacitor and the voltage regulator(all the aforementioned basically converts ac to dc
power), logic circuit that detects when utility supply is restored, an astable multivibrator integrated circuit
(555timer) which triggers the audio and visual indicators respectively. Renewable energy sources
generating direct current will require inverters to produce the alternating current necessary for domestic
and industrial use. Otherwise they can substitute for the hydrocarbon powered conventional alternator as
alternative energy source.After the design, construction and testing of this circuit, it was found to have
performed satisfactorily in switching from mains supply to generator/renewable energy source(s) and vice
versa. Hence this serves the purpose of the project.

3. Project Background:
The introduction of these alternative sources of supply brings forth the challenge of switching smoothly
and timely between the mains supply and the alternative sources, whenever there is a power interruption
on the mains source (Ezema, et al., 2012). While the era of fluctuation and failure in supply of electricity is
long forgotten in many industrialized nations of the world, many developing countries still suffer setbacks
arising from incessant power failures. The provision of alternative power source (generators) has no doubt
brought succour but not without an attendant challenge associated with manual operation of the
changeover (Obasi, et al., 2015). Hence the need for an automatic changeover (automatic transfer switch).

4. Project Description:
In view of the inherent features of the switching device, this project presents the design and construction of
an automatic changeover, which switches electrical power supply from public supply to generator, in the
event of power outage. The system uses an electronic control circuit involving integrated circuits,
transistors and electromechanical devices. The generator delay will help protect both the generating set and
the appliances; a delay circuit allows the generator to run to full load, before connecting the load to it. The
power indicator on the other hand gives the operator both visual and audio indication, when the public
power is restored thereby reducing cost of power as it is cheaper to run on public power supply. This
project combines twin functions of automatic changeover and sequential (gradual or step) loading to
eliminate the need for manual changeover, protect the loads, extend the lifespan of the generator and
improve reliability of power supply. The importance of automatic change over and step loader cannot be
over emphasized especially in critical industries like banking, telecommunications, defence, and healthcare
where continuous operation is critical and interruption of power supply has grievous consequences. A
sequential loader is used to ensure power gets to every load step by step. This is to ensure that power
supply to the load is not accompanied by overloading of the generator. This project is designed to eliminate
the common problem of overloading the generator during changeover (manual/automatic), which reduces
the life span of the generator. In this project, an electronic control monitors the incoming public supply
voltage and detects when the voltage drops below a level when electrical or electronic gadgets can function
depending on the utility supply. In this case 160V is the limit at which the system switches from public
supply to generator and vice-versa.
5. Canadian Participants
[List participants by organization (individual names not required)]

6. U.S. Participants
[List participants by organization (individual names not required)]

7. Proposed Canadian Project Officer

[Name, rank, position and phone number]

8. Proposed U.S. Project Officer

[Name, rank, position and phone number]

9. Probable Milestones
PHASE 1 ANALYSIS: Project Planning, Resource Gathering, Cost Estimation, Modularizing Project,
Scheduling tasks

PHASE 2 DESIGNING: Circuit Designing, DB Panel designing, Interfacing control unit, Software
designing,
Control Unit Diagrams, DB Panel Block Diagram.

PHASE 3 IMPLEMENTATION: Hardware development, Microcontroller Programming, Interfacing

Panel and Control unit, Interfacing system with generator.

PHASE 4 DEBUGGING: Project working, Debugger stages (Trial and Error).

10. Probable Cost and Funding Sources

[Provide rough-order-of-magnitude cost estimate and identification of who will fund. If available,
identify the funding line to be used.]

11. Submitter’s Name, phone number

BILAL AHMAD FAROOQUI-03452766227