Design And Construction Of A Solar Powered Pedestrians Lighting System

ABSTRACT

This work is on solar powered pedestal lighting system. This solar powered pedestal lighting system uses power LEDs for lighting. Solar energy is first converted into DC electricity by a solar photovoltaic cell and used to charge a storage battery. The solar energy stored in the battery is utilised at night for pedestal lighting using power LEDs.

Connection of power LEDs on the pedestal is through a control unit that has a logic circuit for switch-’ON’ at night and switch-’off’ in daytime. The solar panel to charge the storage battery is selected based on the lighting load and duration for which it is required to be ‘on.’

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER PAGE

TITLE PAGE

APPROVAL PAGE

DEDICATION

ACKNOWELDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

1.0      INTRODUCTION

1.1      BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT

• PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT
• AIM OF THE PROJECT
• OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
• SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT
• BENEFIT OF THE PROJECT
• SCOPE OF THE PROJECT
• LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
• PROJECT ORGANISATION

CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

• REVIEW OF HISTORY OF LIGHTING
• REVIEW AND DESCRIPTION OF LED PEDESTAL LIGHT
• HEALTH CONCERNS ABOUT LED PEDESTAL LIGHTS
• REVIEW OF ADVANTAGES OF LED PEDESTAL LIGHTS
• DISADVANTAGES OF LED PEDESTAL LIGHTS
• HISTORITICAL BACKGROUND OF PHOTOVOTAIC CELL
• THEORETICAL REVIEW OF SOLAR CELL
• REVIEW OF SOLAR CELL EFFICIENCY

CHAPTER THREE

3.0     CONSTRUCTION METHODOLOGY

3.1     BLOCK DIAGRAM OF THE SYSTEM

3.2      CIRCUIT CONNECTIONS

3.3      SYSTEM OPERATION

3.4      CIRCUIT DIAGRAM

3.5      CIRCUIT DESCRIPTION

3.6      COMPONENT RATINGS

3.6     DESCRIPTION OF COMPONENTS USED

CHAPTER FOUR

4.0      TESTING AND RESULTS

• CONSTRUCTION PROCEDURE AND TESTING
• INSTALLATION OF THE COMPLET DESIGN
• ASSEMBLING OF SECTIONS
• TESTING OF SYSTEM OPERATION
• COST ANALYSIS
• PANEL MOUNTING
• MAINTENANCE OF PEDESTAL LIGHT

CHAPTER FIVE

• CONCLUSION
• RECOMMENDATION
• REFERENCES

CHAPTR ONE

1.0                                          INTRODUCTION

The energy consumption in entire world is increasing at the fastest rates due to population growth and economic development and the availability of energy sources remains woefully constrained. Resource augmentation and growth in energy supply has not kept pace with increasing demand and, therefore, Nigeria continues to face serious energy shortages.

The key indicators of Nigeria’s energy problems include; Over 40 per cent of the households (particularly rural areas) in Nigeria still do not have electricity, about a third of our total primary energy supply to rural areas still comes from non-commercial sources (biomass, dung) and currently Nigeria faces an enormous demand supply gap of about 15-25% energy shortage. Due to shortage of the energy supply till today several villages have not facilitated with electricity and even if  provided, the supply of the electricity is limited to few hours in a day and are facing serious problems due to unlimited  power cuts. The current project aims at solving one of the major  problems in the remote rural areas which faces serious uncontrolled power cut problems. During the day time we get enormous amount of light energy from sun and the problem for pedestals are common during the night time. Though most of the streets are equipped with street lights in each and every village areas but due to the uncontrolled power failures/power cut it is becoming a serious problem for villagers to commute for irrigational field work during the night time due to unlimited power cuts. The project aims at using the energy from renewable energy sources like sun and to effectively use the harvested energy for the benefit of remote villages (villagers) facing the serious power problems. The main aim of the project is to provide a “Lighting System” powered with solar energy to assist the villagers during night time. By integrating the entire lights lightening system it is possible to systematically help the pedestrian to reach the destination in the remote rural areas which are facing serious electric power supply problem. The same system can also be used for the House lighting purpose as it works on the principle of sensing the thermal signature of human body to switch the light, there by the system helps in saving the electric power. The project aims at using the energy from renewable energy sources like sun and to effectively use the energy for the benefit of remote villages facing serious electricity problems.

1.1                                                  AIM OF THE PROJECT

The main aim of the project is to provide a pedestrian lighting system for an entire village powered from solar energy.

This solar powered pedestal lighting system uses power LEDs for lighting. Solar energy is first converted into DC electricity by a solar photovoltaic cell and used to charge a storage battery. The solar energy stored in the battery is utilised at night for pedestal lighting using power LEDs.

1.2                                             OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT

The main objective of this work is to build a device that will supply a steady lightening or illumination to the pathway of pedestrians. At the end of this work the student involved shall be able to:

1. Know how the system works
2. Know the connection and operating principle of components used such as solar panel and light dependent resistor.

1.3                                              PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT

The purpose of this work is to use energy from the solar panel installed at the top of the unit whose generated electricity is stored in Lead- Acid battery to power pedestrian lightening system.

1.4                                         SIGNIFICANCE OF THE PROJECT

This work is on pedestrian lighting system which would be installed in the village such that the units could provide continuous light to pedestrians at night assisting him to reach his destination. The above system has two main advantages-

1. Reduces the wastage of renewable energy and hence can be deployed in regions with very low sunlight also.
2. Simple design and hence easier maintenance

1.5                                               BENEFIT OF THE PROJECT

Major advantages of solar pedestrian lighting includes: prevention of accidents and increase in safety. Studies have shown that darkness results in a large number of dashing of feet against stones or any other object; pedestrian fatalities are 3 to 6.75 times more likely in the dark than in daylight. External lighting has been found to reduce pedestrian crashes by approximately 50%.

Furthermore, lighted intersections and highway interchanges tend to have fewer crashes than unlighted intersections and interchanges. Towns, cities, and villages use the unique locations provided by lampposts to hang decorative or commemorative banners.

Animal attack such as snake bite is higher at night than day time, this device reduces such incident to the lowest level.

1.6                                                 SCOPE OF THE PROJECT

This system lights up pedestrians pathway at night. The system comes On when whenever it detects darkness and goes OFF when there is daylight. The system requires an integrated circuit (i.c), light dependent resistor (dark and light sensors) and a battery for making the entire idea functional. The sensor detects darkness as well as light then sends electrical signals to the integrated circuit. The integrated circuit would then power the pedestrian lightening system by a battery source. The function of the solar panel used is to charge the battery during the day which is to be used at night.

1.7                                           LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT

The only problem noticed in this work is that the intelligent operation of the system may stop working as soon as the sensor got spoiled.

If a bigger battery is not used, there is a possibility that the system will go OFF at night whenever the battery charge is exhausted.

1.8                                        PROJECT WORK ORGANISATION

The various stages involved in the development of this project have been properly put into five chapters to enhance comprehensive and concise reading. In this project thesis, the project is organized sequentially as follows:

Chapter one of this work is on the introduction to this study. In this chapter, the background, significance, scope, aim, purpose, objective, the need (benefit), and limitation of this work was discussed.

Chapter two is on literature review of the study. In this chapter, all the literature pertaining to this work was reviewed.

Chapter three is on design methodology. In this chapter all the method involved during the design and construction were discussed.

Chapter four is on testing analysis. All testing that result accurate functionality was analyzed.

Chapter five is on conclusion, recommendation and references.