25-08-2017, 09:32 PM
HYBRID SOLAR AND WIND POWER: AN ESSENTIAL FOR INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE AND PEOPLE IN RURAL COMMUNITIES
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ABSTRACT
One of the primary needs for socio-economic development in any nation in the world is the provision of reliable electricity supply systems. This work is a development of an indigenous technology hybrid Solar -Wind Power system that harnesses the renewable energies in Sun and Wind to generate electricity. Here, electric DC energies produced from photovoltaic and wind turbine systems are transported to a DC disconnect energy Mix controller. The controller is bidirectional connected to a DC-AC float charging-inverter system that provides charging current to a heavy duty storage bank of Battery and at the same time produces inverted AC power to AC loads. The 2002-2009, 8years wind velocity data for Abeokuta and its environs were collected. The two parameters Wielbull distribution was used to simulate power in W/m2 densities for the 8-years period. The step by step design of 1000W solar power supply system’s was done as a sample case. Load estimates of a typical rural community and for rural ICT infrastructures were estimated. Simulation of wind power capacity in W/m2 in Abeokuta, Ogun State Nigerian was done based on the obtained wind data. The results showed that the average exploitable wind power density between 4W/m2 and 14.97W/m2 is realizable and that development of hybrid wind-solar system for off- grid communities will go a long way to improve socio-economy lives of people.
INTRODUCTION
One of the primary needs for socio-economic development in any nation in the world is the provision of reliable electricity supply systems. In Nigeria, the low level of electricity generation in Nigeria from conventional fossil fuel, has been the major constraint to rapid socio-economic development especially in rural communities. Moreso, about sixty-five percent(65%) of 140million Nigeria populace are rural dwellers with majority of them living far-off grid areas [1]. These rural dwellers are mostly farmers whose socio-economic lives can only be improved when provisions are made to preserve their wasting agricultural products and provide energy for their household equipment such as refrigerator, fan, lighting etc. There is also such a need to provide electricity for e-information infrastructures in our rural communities to service school, rural hospital, rural banking and rural e-library. Hence, there is the need to develop an indigenous technology to harness the renewable energies in Sun and Wind to generate electricity. 1.1 Importance of Renewable energy The global search and the rise in the cost of conventional fossil fuel is making supply-demand of electricity product almost impossible especially in some remote areas. Generators which are often used as an alternative to conventional power supply systems are known to be run only during certain hours of the day, and the cost of fueling them is increasingly becoming difficult if they are to be used for commercial purposes. There is a growing awareness that renewable energy such as photovoltaic system and Wind power have an important role to play in order to save the situation. Figure 1 is the schematic layout of Solar-Wind Hybrid system that can supply either dc or ac energy or both.
Basic Components of Solar Power
The major components include P.V modules, battery and inverter. The most efficient way to determine the
capacities of these components is to estimate the load to be supplied. The size of the battery bank required will
depend on the storage required, the maximum discharge rate, and the minimum temperature at which the batteries
will be used [4]. When designing a solar power system, all of these factors are to be taken into consideration when
battery size is to be chosen.
Lead-acid batteries are the most common in P.V systems because their initial cost is lower and also they are readily
available nearly everywhere in the world.
Deep cycle batteries are designed to be repeatedly discharged as much as 80 percent of their capacity and so they are
a good choice for power systems. Figure 2 is a schematic diagram of a typical Photovoltaic System.
WIND POWER
Wind Power is energy extracted from the wind, passing through a machine known as the windmill. Electrical energy can be generated from the wind energy. This is done by using the energy from wind to run a windmill, which in turn drives a generator to produce electricity [6]. The windmill in this case is usually called a wind turbine. This turbine transforms the wind energy to mechanical energy, which in a generator is converted to electrical power. An integration of wind generator, wind turbine, aero generators is known as a wind energy conversion system (WECS)[7]
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Choice of components for Solar Energy Power Supply For 1000 Watt Load:
The choice of 1000W is a sample case and this can be extended to any required capacity.
To achieve a solar power capacity of 1000watts the capacities of Solar panel, Charging Controller, bank of battery and Inverter are determined. The values cannot be picked abstractly and hence, their ratings and specification have to be determined through calculations in other for the system to perform to required specifications.