Design, experimental and feasibility study for highway electricity generation using low‐cost wind turbine

Abstract

With the ever‐increasing demand for electricity, the need to generate electricity from potential sources is high. A promising idea to generate electricity from highways is proposed, designed and tested. A low cost Savonius wind turbine (SWT) was fabricated at a cost of around $110 and was tested by placing in highways at varying wind speed and traffic conditions to generate electricity. This generated electricity is utilized to satisfy the electricity needs of the rural houses nearby highways with rural electrification schemes to operate lighting. From the experimental data, the estimated average electricity generation from a SWT was found around 0.4 kWh/day. The life cycle analysis (LCA) of the proposed system is conducted by considering the real‐time economic parameters. Also, the economic study conducted showed the levelized cost of electricity was around $0.07/kWh LCA is studied by considering as a SWT farm installed with 250 SWTs connected in 1 km stretch with estimated power output around 100 kWh/day. With this, the demand for energy for atleast 6 h/day in rural households is fulfilled.