Autonomous Rural Street Lighting Powered by Low-Wind VAWT Micro-Generation with Intelligent 555-LDR Light Control

Wind energy is the most necessary and clean renewable energy resource available all over the world. In India, it is highly available in coastal and high-wind regions. This paper presents a mini project model of a street lighting system powered using a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT). It is a combination of natural wind and dynamic wind produced by moving vehicles on a roadway. The VAWT rotates a small DC generator and the output energy is rectified, regulated and used to power low- power LED street lamps. The hardware model is developed using a scaled roadway, small 12V DC motor as generator, LED street poles, rectifier circuit and basic power conditioning electronics. This work shows that small distributed VAWT systems can contribute to green smart-city infrastructure and can assist street lighting power requirement while reducing load on the conventional electricity grid.