Design And Construction of A 12V Wind Power Generation

1.1 INTRODUCTION
Every device we use in our day-to-day life such as mobile phone, computer, induction cookers, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, etc., requires electric power supply. Thus, the advancement in technology is increasing the electrical and electronic appliances usage – which, in turn – is increasing the power demand. Thus, to meet the load demand, different techniques are used for electric power generation. In the recent times, to avoid pollution and to conserve non-renewable energy resources like coal, petroleum, etc., renewable energy sources like solar, wind, etc., are being preferred for power generation.
However, production of wind energy using wind is discussed in this work. Wind energy is also one of the renewable energy resources that can be used for generating electrical energy with wind turbines coupled with generators. There are various advantages of wind energy, such as wind turbines power generation, for mechanical power with windmills, for pumping water using wind pumps, and so on.
Wind power uses of air flow through wind turbines to mechanically power generators for electricity. Wind power, as an alternative to burning fossil fuels, is plentiful, renewable, widely distributed, clean, produces no greenhouse gas emissions during operation, uses no water, and uses little land. The net effects on the environment are far less problematic than those of nonrenewable power sources.
Wind power gives variable power which is very consistent from year to year but which has significant variation over shorter time scales. It is therefore used in conjunction with other electric power sources to give a reliable supply. As the proportion of wind power in a region increases, a need to upgrade the grid, and a lowered ability to supplant conventional production can occur. Power management techniques such as having excess capacity, geographically distributed turbines, dispatchable backing sources, sufficient hydroelectric power, exporting and importing power to neighboring areas, using vehicle-to-grid strategies or reducing demand when wind production is low, can in many cases overcome these problems.

1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE PROJECT
Wind power has been used as long as humans have put sails into the wind. For more than two millennia wind-powered machines have ground grain and pumped water. Wind power was widely available and not confined to the banks of fast-flowing streams, or later, requiring sources of fuel. Wind-powered pumps drained the polders of the Netherlands, and in arid regions such as the American mid-west or the Australian outback, wind pumps provided water for live stock and steam engines.
The first windmill used for the production of electricity was built in Scotland in July 1887 by Prof James Blyth of Anderson’s College, Glasgow (the precursor of Strathclyde University). Blyth’s 10 m high, cloth-sailed wind turbine was installed in the garden of his holiday cottage at Marykirk in Kincardineshire and was used to charge accumulators developed by the Frenchman Camille Alphonse Faure, to power the lighting in the cottage, thus making it the first house in the world to have its electricity supplied by wind power. Blyth offered the surplus electricity to the people of Marykirk for lighting the main street, however, they turned down the offer as they thought electricity was “the work of the devil.” Although he later built a wind turbine to supply emergency power to the local Lunatic Asylum, Infirmary and Dispensary of Montrose the invention never really caught on as the technology was not considered to be economically viable.
Across the Atlantic, in Cleveland, Ohio a larger and heavily engineered machine was designed and constructed in the winter of 1887–1888 by Charles F. Brush, this was built by his engineering company at his home and operated from 1886 until 1900. The Brush wind turbine had a rotor 17 m (56 foot) in diameter and was mounted on an 18 m (60 foot) tower. Although large by today’s standards, the machine was only rated at 12 kW. The connected dynamo was used either to charge a bank of batteries or to operate up to 100 incandescent light bulbs, three arc lamps, and various motors in Brush’s laboratory.
With the development of electric power, wind power found new applications in lighting buildings remote from centrally-generated power. Throughout the 20th century parallel paths developed small wind stations suitable for farms or residences, and larger utility-scale wind generators that could be connected to electricity grids for remote use of power. Today wind powered generators operate in every size range between tiny stations for battery charging at isolated residences, up to near-gigawatt sized offshore wind farms that provide electricity to national electrical networks.

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT
As a result of continuous power failure and fluctuation in power supply by Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), sensitive appliances and system are affected by interruption power supply and also the blackout also affect human generally in that it takes away our happiness. Then, this project is to provide a back-up, renewable and reliable power supply of 200VA from a wind turbine to power some selected home appliances such as computers, television set, lighting systems.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT
This work focuses on the production of electricity using wind. The energy is produced by the use of wind turbine. The objective of the study is to describe such system of power generation.

1.4 ADVANTAGES OF THE PROJECT
It’s a clean fuel source. Wind energy doesn’t pollute the air like power plants that rely on combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas. Wind turbines don’t produce atmospheric emissions that cause acid rain or greenhouse gases.
Wind is a domestic source of energy. The nation’s wind supply is abundant. Over the past 10 years, cumulative wind power capacity in the United States increased an average of 30% per year, outpacing the 28% growth rate in worldwide capacity.
It’s sustainable. Wind is actually a form of solar energy. Winds are caused by the heating of the atmosphere by the sun, the rotation of the Earth, and the Earth’s surface irregularities. For as long as the sun shines and the wind blows, the energy produced can be harnessed to send power across the grid.
Wind power is cost-effective. It is one of the lowest-priced renewable energy technologies available today, costing between four and six cents per kilowatt-hour, depending upon the wind resource and the particular project’s financing.
Wind turbines can be built on existing farms or ranches. This greatly benefits the economy in rural areas, where most of the best wind sites are found. Farmers and ranchers can continue to work the land because the wind turbines use only a fraction of the land. Wind power plant owners make rent payments to the farmer or rancher for the use of the land, providing landowners with additional income.
Wind creates jobs. Some Government such as U.S used to invest to build projects and employed workers.

1.5 LIMITATION OF THE PROJECT
Good wind sites are often located in remote locations, far from cities where the electricity is needed. Transmission lines must be built to bring the electricity from the wind farm to the city.
Wind resource development might not be the most profitable use of the land. Land suitable for wind-turbine installation must compete with alternative uses for the land, which might be more highly valued than electricity generation.
Turbines might cause noise and aesthetic pollution. Although wind power plants have relatively little impact on the environment compared to conventional power plants, concern exists over the noise produced by the turbine blades and visual impacts to the landscape.
Turbine blades could damage local wildlife. Birds have been killed by flying into spinning turbine blades. Most of these problems have been resolved or greatly reduced through technological development or by properly siting wind plants.
Wind energy requires expensive storage during peak production time.
Wind energy can be harnessed only in those areas where wind is strong enough and weather is windy for most parts of the year.
Usually places, where wind power set-up is situated, are away from the places where demand of electricity is there. Transmission from such places increases cost of electricity.
The average efficiency of wind turbine is very less as compared to fossil fuel power plants. We might require many wind turbines to produce similar impact.
Maintenance cost of wind turbines is high as they have mechanical parts which undergo wear and tear over the time.
Even though there are advantages of wind energy, the limitations make it extremely difficult for it to be harnessed and prove to be a setback.

1.7 APPLICATION OF WIND-TURBINE
Wind-turbine generators have been built a wide range of power outputs from kilowatt or so to a few thousand kilowatts, machine of low power can generate sufficient electricity for space heating & cooling of names & for operating domestic appliances.
Pumping Application:- A typical wind powered pumping application is one that might use a horizontal –axis wind used to pump irrigation water. Large number water pumping wind mills have been used in Indian forms other applications that are being developed include the pumping of water for aqueducts or for pumped-hydro storage of energy.
Direct Heat Application :- Mechanical motion derived from wind power can be used to drive heat pumps or to produce heat from the friction of solid materials, or by the charning of water or other fluids or in other cases, by the use of centrifugal or other types of pumps in combination with restrictive orifices that produces heat from friction and turbulence when material having a high heat capacity such as water, stones, electric etc. or the heat may be used directly for such application as heating and cooling of water.
Electric Generation Applications:- Wind power can be used in centralized applications to drive synchronous a.c. electrical generator. In such applications, the energy is fed directly into power networks through voltage step-up transformers.

1.8 PROJECT ORGANISATION
The work is organized as follows: chapter one discuses the introductory part of the work, chapter two presents the literature review of the study, chapter three describes the methods applied, chapter four discusses the results of the work, chapter five summarizes the research outcomes and the recommendations.