Solar Wind Hybrid Generator

Project Title

Solar Wind Hybrid Generator

Project Area of Specialization Mechanical EngineeringProject Summary

Nowadays, one of mankind’s greatest desire was to have reliable and sustainable electricity. Over the years, conventional, non-renewable energy resources (e.g. coal, nuclear) had been harnessed to generate electricity. However, this resources were depleting with constant usage. This had initiated a switch in attention to renewable energy sources like wind, solar, tidal energy etc. The objective of this project, therefore, was to design and implement a portable hybrid power system that combines two of these renewable energy sources, that is, wind and solar energy, to generate reliable and sustainable electricity.The focus is on the power generation, as this is one of the major problems in Pakistan and other developing and underdeveloped countries. Pakistan has faced a lot of power shortages for a long time. As power generation is a major problem in Pakistan and there is a lot of potential in this field. So we are making a prototype of a vertical axis wind turbine. The design we have chosen for our wind turbine is Savoinus Rotor Type which is a drag type wind turbine. Our prototype will be able to generate 13W at about 4.8 m/s wind speed which is the average wind speed available in the regions of Lahore and in some regions of Islamabad. A 12W vertical axis wind turbine will be designed and fabricated with magnetic levitation to minimize the frictional losses. The project would be a prototype and could be commercialized later in the market. Vertical axis wind turbine could be used for small household, in synchronization with the solar panels to charge the battery during day and night. These could also be installed on telecom power to provide power to the electronics in urban as well as rural areas.

Project Objectives

The objectives of this project include the following,

1. To design and implement a solar-wind hybrid power system
2. To use the complete system domestically to provide sustainable electricity irrespective of changes in weather conditions.
3. To ensure that the system is available for use throughout the day.
4. To supply electricity to its customers in an economical and reliable manner
5. To select an optimum combination for hybrid system to meet the load demand 
6. To evaluate on the basis of power reliability, system life-cycle cost and environmental aspect.

Project Implementation Method

Firstly, we choose design for the wind turbine and that is Savonius Rotor. We preferred this one because it doesn’t require any Yaw Mechanism to rotate the wind turbine to place the upcoming wind, because these wind turbines work independent of wind direction. 

After calculating the main construction parameters, we have to draw two-dimensional and three-dimensional model of wind turbine rotor in creo parametric

The type of material and its thickness has to be chosen and  detailed structural analysis of the wind turbine has done in Ansys. For the analysis of the wind turbine rotor, the parameter which were given to the software are material, force constraints. The CAD model of the wind turbine was analyzed for different materials like plastic, aluminum, carbon fiber. Stress analysis was performed for all these materials. Aluminum being lightest, cheaper and due to its easy market availability was preferred over other materials. Aluminum is a light metal with a specific weight of 2.7 g/ccm, about a third that of steel.  Aluminum naturally generates a protective oxide coating and is highly corrosion resistant.

We purchaesd the whole material, this includes aluminum sheet for end plates and blades, aluminum pipe and mild steel pipe,steeper motors,flanges,shaft, pipe, alumium and mild steel angles. Sheet for the blade and the angles were rolled. Rolling of the blades and angles were done in such a way that there ends meet each other. Later the rolled aluminum sheet and the angles were cut according to their respective sizes. Five Holes of  were drilled in the base, to bolt the End Plate and Six Holes  were drilled on the wall of the Aluminum Angle, to rivet with the Blades.  Aluminum Angles and Blades were Riveted together.

Aluminum Sheet was marked to cut the end plates. These were first roughly cut with JigSaw and were later clamped on the lathe machine, where the Outer diameter was finished to an accurate size. And to clamp the plates on the Lathe Machine, a hole  was made in the center. After the required outer dimension was achieved, two sets of five holes  were drilled for the aluminum angles and four holes of were drilled for the bearing brackets. Two Bearing Brackets were required for top and bottom. These would hold the Center Aluminum Pipe of the Rotor and the Bearings. These were casted in Aluminum but first a wooden pattern of the bearing bracket was made and then machined.

After rotor fabrication, we used three stepper motors (Nema 17) under the bottom end plate and these are attached with the help of wheels and rubber belt. 

Solar panel system was connected with wind turbine with the help of solar inverter that converts DC electricity to AC.

Benefits of the Project

The hybrid energy systems ensure energy security and reliability which make them the ideal way of using renewable energy sources in particular. There are some advantages of hybrid solar and wind systems  whiich are as follows:

1. Uninterrupted power supply: The mix of two or more energy generating technologies with addition of energy storage technology never lets the consumer be short of power. If we consider a hybrid of solar and wind energy, both solar and wind can generate electricity during the day. Wind can also generate electricity at night and if energy storage is available, continuous power supply is available all the time.
2. Low maintenance cost: The maintenance cost of the our project is low as compared to the traditional generators which use diesel as fuel. No fuel is used and they do not require frequent servicing.
3. Increased reliability: Installation of two or more energy systems increases the reliability of the system. Like in a solar wind energy hybrid system, wind power can generate at night or sun can generate electricity when there is no wind. Similarly with energy storage, reliability increases further when both sun and wind sources are absent in solar wind hybrid system.
4. Low life-cycle costs: Renewable energy sources in a hybrid system result in low life-cycle costs due to variability of supply to load by different energy generating systems. The maintenance and operation costs in hybrid energy system is minimum as compared with other systems.
5. Best utilization of renewable energy sources: If any renewable energy source is available on a site for use, its utilization in best manner is done by hybrid energy system. For instance, having only solar power plant at a location with usable wind speeds is waste of wind energy on that site. In this case, hybrid of solar and wind power can very efficiently utilize both solar and wind energy.
6. Environment friendly: Renewable energy devices in hybrid system are environment friendly in nature as compared to fossil fueled energy systems.
7. The hybrid power system enables to overcome the limitations in wind and photovoltaic resources since their performance characteristics depends upon the unfavorable changes in environmental conditions.

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

According to the report of National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), United States, Pakistan has a huge wind energy potential of around 346 GW for the power generation. It is projected for wind energy scenario that around 0.5 TW can be produced by the end of 2019.

The average hourly wind speed in Lahore experience mild seasonal variation over the course of the year. The windier part of the year lasts for 5.9 months, from January 21 to July 18, with average wind speeds of more than 5.3 miles per hour. The windiest  month of the year in Lahore is April, with an average hourly wind speed of 6.3 miles per hour. The calmer time of year lasts for 6 months, from July 18 to January 21. The calmest month of the year in Lahore is September, with an average hourly wind speed of 4.3 miles per hour.

Main parameters involved in the construction and operation of the Savonius type rotor and those are represented by the basic geometric parameters that describe the diameter of the rotor and blades, the radial and angular positioning of the blades, as well as the constructive height of the rotor, the functional parameters resulting from the operation of the rotor represented by the torque developed at the shaft, the power coefficient, the torque coefficient, the total power developed. In following table we calculated the parameters  for our project that play an important role power in performance of savonius vertical axis wind turbine

Sr.no	Velocity [m/s]	Wind power [w]	Angular Velocity [rad/s]	RPM [rpm]	Power output[w]	Torque [Nm]	Force Fd [N]
1	4	24.30	12.79	122	7.29	0.57	2.30

               Batch Type – Savonius with Three Blades

                   (All  dimensions in inches)

    Two-Dimensional Drawing of Wind Turbine Rotor

Solar panel that produced 30W of power is suitable for our project (Width: 435mm, Height: 490mm, Depth: 25mm, Length: 490mm, Width: 3kg )was connected with wind turbine with the of battery that converts DC to AC.

Sr.no

1

Final Deliverable of the Project Hardware SystemCore Industry Energy Other Industries Others Core Technology OthersOther Technologies Clean TechSustainable Development Goals Good Health and Well-Being for People, Affordable and Clean EnergyRequired Resources

Elapsed time in (days or weeks or month or quarter) since start of the project	Milestone	Deliverable
Month 1	Literature Review	Information Gathering
Month 2	Project Proposal and Defense	Governance Plan
Month 3	Calculation	Data Analysis
Month 4	Design Plans	Design and Measurement
Month 5	Manufacturing and Modeling	Fabrication
Month 6	Inspection and Testing	Project Quality
Month 7	Report	Quantify Whole Data
Month 8	Final Submission	Entire Scope of Work