Implementation of a highway wind power generation using vertical axis wind turbine to automatically power a street lamp

Abstract

Vision 2030 of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia envisions a shift towards renewable sources of energy. In accordance with this vision, we have developed an off-grid application using a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) to power a street lamp in a highway. VAWT are more suited for this application as they are easy to install than the horizontal axis wind turbine, can function with low-speed blades under varying wind speeds, and can prevail in the harsh weather condition prevailing in the Kingdom. MATLAB is utilized to design the circuit and to analyze the state of charge (SOC) of the battery under no load, varying load, and full load. Arduino based weather station and automatic control of street lamp are implemented to conserve energy. The model was tested in the highway and the test indicates the proposed model is able to harness power from wind to power the street lamp.