Investigating the feasibility of nano-grid infrastructure integration into street lighting systems based on energy production and economic evaluation

To enhance efficient and sustainable energy usage in street lighting systems, a nano-grid infrastructure comprising an energy harvesting, storage, and management system is integrated. This paper investigated the feasibility in terms of energy production and economic evaluation of using various energy harvesting for photovoltaic, piezoelectric, and wind energy in a nano-grid street lighting system. The photovoltaic system was evaluated based on the factors of annual actual solar radiation, power losses, and system performance using the PVsyst software. The piezoelectric energy production was studied and designed. Optimal piezoelectric installation for maximum power generation was analyzed in terms of deformation and stress using ANSYS software. For wind power generation, the wind turbine characteristics, along with its location, were designed to optimize power output using computational fluid dynamic simulations in ANSYS software. After that, economic evaluation for the proposed energy harvesting systems for nano-grid street lighting system are analyzed and compared in terms of DPP, NPV, IRR, and LCOE. In addition, the optimization of using PV, a wind system, a hybrid PV-wind system for nano-grid street lighting systems was conducted using HOMER Pro software. The results indicated that generating power through PV, piezoelectric, and wind energy was feasible. However, economic evaluation unveiled the infeasibility of employing piezoelectric and wind energy systems due to their elevated investment costs relative to their power generation capabilities. The dynamics of power generation from PV and wind systems, along with street lighting consumption, significantly impacted the dimensions of energy harvesting and storage systems, as well as their economic feasibility. The hybrid PV-wind system exhibited strong economic feasibility.