Students of the Department of Electrical Engineering at Umm Al-Qura University devised smart technologies to rationalize electricity consumption and reduce energy emissions, during their participation in the 9th Saudi Arabia Smart Grid Conference. They participated with a research scientific poster project displaying the effective role of smart technologies. The project uses a smart sensor that senses movement and sound, and is associated with lighting, which allows smart lighting control.

The goal of the project is to rationalize the consumption of electrical energy, thus reducing dependence on petroleum resources, reduce greenhouse emissions by using globally applied energy management technology, and rationalize consumption in peak load areas. This technology aims to keep pace with the increase in energy demand by rationalizing the electrical consumption of loads, instead of establishing new power stations and new transmission lines. Therefore, there will be less reliance on the use of petroleum resources for electrical energy production, reducing emissions and increasing savings in the price of electrical energy.

The supervisor of the research project, Dr. Omar bin Abdul-Aziz Hafizh, stated that the project was applied on a small scale to the building of the College of Engineering and Islamic Architecture, in order to calculate the actual savings and the amount of rationalization in electricity consumption at the university.

He pointed out that there are future plans to calculate the economic feasibility of the price of the sensor along with the price of its installation, the period to recover its value, and the possible savings accrued from the remaining life span. This is in order to save prices and rationalize electricity consumption. The study also aims, in the future, to generalize its results to all government sectors and ministries, to achieve one of the goals of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030. He praised the support and interest of the Dean of the College of Engineering and Islamic Architecture, Dr. Ahmad Al-Ahmadi, and His Excellency the President of the University, Prof. Dr. Abdullah Bafail, and their keenness to excel in these scientific partnerships, forums, and conferences.

The students who took part in the project are: Nawwaf Al-Shamarani, Khalid Al-Ghamdi, Ammar Al-Ghamdi, Sultan Al-Qurashi, and Muhammad Abdul-Qadir Nur, under the supervision of Dr. Omar bin Abdul-Aziz Hafiz.

The project was refereed by the Technical Committee of the 9th Saudi Arabia Smart Grid Conference, which recommended its presentation at the conference.