Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Development of Distributed Off-grid Wind Energy System for Rural African Communities
EPA Grant Number: SU836131Title: Development of Distributed Off-grid Wind Energy System for Rural African Communities
Investigators: Chen, Jun
Institution: Purdue University
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Phase: I
Project Period: September 1, 2015 through August 31, 2016 (Extended to February 28, 2018)
Project Amount: $15,000
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2015) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Awards , Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , Sustainable and Healthy Communities , P3 Challenge Area - Air Quality
Objective:
In Africa, about 590 million people (57% of the population) have no access to electricity. In our recent trips to rural African communities, our Purdue Global Development Team (GDT) witnessed how eradicating poverty and pursuing prosperity are highly correlated to the steady availability of electricity. Therefore, if low-cost off-grid power systems can be developed in those rural communities, it will be an important asset for improving education, quality of life, and outreach to the rest of the world for pursuing sustainable prosperity. We have designed micro-hydropower systems for producing electricity from the river water flowing nearby. However, during the annual dry season, the local precipitation rate decreases to nearly zero so the hydropower system may cease to function. Wind energy or hybrid wind/solar energy system has been referred to as a supplemental solution during the dry season to meet the basic household power need. Development of such systems is limited by locally available technical expertise. Faulty designs have always prevented the design from being promoted as a mature and economically viable technology in a sustainable approach. Our team proposes to design a prototype off-grid energy system, by adopting a novel cycloturibne concept into the wind energy design. In combination with a solar system, it may serve as a stand-alone power unit or clustered community mini-grid unit to rural African communities. The main goals in this project are: (1) to set up a continuous wind survey system in a village in Cameroon, as a basis for developing distributed wind energy system in similar rural sub-Saharan African regions; (2) to design a cycloturbine equipped with a variable pitch mechanism that can be optimized to meet the local wind characteristics; and (3) to build a prototype of hybrid cycloturbine-solar unit and characterize its performance under simulated conditions. These goals were accomplished by an interdisciplinary group of undergraduate engineering students supervised by a faculty advisor and a graduate student at Purdue University. In Phase I, a prototype of the hybrid system was designed, fabricated, and tested by the student team without referring to extramural or professional manufacturing resources that are not steadily available in African communities. The team practiced the principle Design for Sustainability by relating the design with all three pillars of sustainability (People, Prosperity, and Planet). We also promoted the sustainability practices by demonstrating this project to both international and domestic communities.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
In 2015, our team conducted assessments of the basic power needs in Bangang and Western Bakossi, two representative rural communities remote from the governmental electricity grid in Cameroon. Insufficient capacity of the government grid and massive initial infrastructure investment prohibit the local inhabitants in these communities from pursuing power supply on government grid. Developing off-grid power systems for these rural communities represent a solution that can steadily generate electricity at a lower cost than the government grid with an affordable installation cost. Low-cost off-grid power systems can be developed by exploiting the ample local resources of renewable energy (hydropower, solar, and wind). They will be an important asset for improving education, quality of life, and outreach to the rest of the world for pursuing sustainable prosperity.
In this Phase I project, our team also conducted the first design effort to incorporate the cycloturbine concept into a distributed wind energy system with a target of producing affordable rural communities in Africa. The new design will operate under a wide range of conditions with significantly improved efficiency. Deploying one of such hybrid unit will meet the basic power need of a standard household in the community. Our team fabricated a scaled prototype using educational resources and machining capacities, to simulate a similar scenario for local fabrication in Africa. The materials and parts were selected according to their availability from the African supply chain. All the fabrication procedures were documented and videotaped as training materials after future technology transfer.
Conclusions:
A full-scale implementation of the new design, in combination with a solar system, may serve as a stand-alone power unit or clustered community mini-grid unit, at a cost affordable to the inhabitants of the rural communities. The system was specially designed to meet the basic power need in the annual dry season to supplement the electricity production by micro-hydropower. Our final goal is to control the cost of a locally fabricated system in Africa less than $1 per generated watt, after a complete technology transfer. The system will alleviate the negative and irreversible impacts to the tropical forests and the local ecosystem from consuming firewood for energy. The project embodied all three aspects of P3: people, prosperity and the planet: developing off-grid energy systems to improve the quality of life in rural communities addresses people; the new design helps to stimulate the local economic growth by providing affordable electricity and job opportunities thus addresses prosperity; developing this kind of energy solution reduces the heavy reliance on deforestation for fuelwood and the associated threat to the local ecosystem thus addresses planet.
PROPOSED PHASE II OBJECTIVES AND STRATEGIES
The primary goal of the Phase II project is to fabricate and install hybrid energy systems on pilot site in rural communities of Cameroon. Our team will resume our work on an improved design by introducing a new concept for economical energy storage in off-grid power solution. In particular, we will pursue three objectives:
Objective #1: Improve the design of the hybrid cycloturbine-photovoltaic system by introducing a new hydro-storage concept to replace the expensive battery storage.
Objective #2: Design and install a hybrid wind-solar system with a capacity of 1.0 kW in one of the secondary schools, as a basis for introducing and demonstrating the effectiveness of hybrid power solution to the local community.
Objective #3: Design and install a hybrid off-grid system (2.5 kW capacity) to provide power to the health center located in Nyandong (Western Bakossi, Cameroon).
To accomplish these goals, we will form a new Purdue GEP team at the beginning of the fall semester. Engineering sophomores and juniors will be recruited from different disciplines to replace the graduated seniors. A team of students and faculty advisor will plan two 3-4 week trips to Cameroon in 2017 and 2018, respectively. These trips will be part of the Purdue Global Engineering Program Summer Semester Study Abroad Courses. The team will work on designing the hybrid systems described in objectives 2 and 3 in the regular spring and fall semesters. The target for the first trip in 2017 is to bring off-grid power to a secondary school, with a capacity to lighten 5 classrooms and to power teaching equipment. The team will also donate a laptop and teaching materials recorded on CDs to the school. The second trip in 2018 will target to bring power to the local health center in Western Bakossi.
Our team will also refine the current design of a hybrid wind-solar system. We will explore a more economical energy storage option. The electricity produced by the cycloturbine and solar panel drives a water pump to transfer water from a ground tank to a water tower. Then the electrical energy is converted to the potential energy of the water stored in a water tower. When electricity is needed from users connected to the mini-grid, the water flows down from the water tower and drives a micro-hydropower turbine for generate AC electricity. Since the costs of a water pump, water tanks, and micro-hydropower turbine, this energy storage option is significantly cheaper than battery banks. This novel hybrid wind-solar-hydro combination represents a significant technical breakthrough in developing off-grid power solutions to rural communities.
The proposed Phase II project embodies the three pillars of sustainability. Implementing this project not only produces electricity but also creates excellent opportunities to draw attention from the local inhabitants as end users on understanding the advantage of renewable energy. It will directly serve the purpose of promoting environmental protection and improve local education and healthcare. In addition, this Phase II project will be a great education platform for our next-generation engineers.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 4 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
Distributed Energy System Wind Energy, Vertical Axis Wind Turbine Cycloturbine, Design for Sustainability.Relevant Websites:
Shah Lab's Seed Grant Awarded Projects Exit
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.