Simultaneous wind and solar energy harvesting with inverted flags

Abstract

This paper presents a novel wind/solar energy-harvesting device based on the inverted flag concept that combines flexible piezoelectric strips with flexible photovoltaic cells to simultaneously harvest both wind and solar energy. Three inverted flags built using off-theshelf components were experimentally investigated under controlled wind and illumination conditions to analyse their dynamics and electrical power generation capability. Our results provide an improved understanding of the dynamics of inverted flags that incorporate flexible piezoelectric strips and flexible solar panels, and indicate that the piezoelectric strips mainly increase the damping of the flags, while the solar panels act as an added mass. The power measurements show that the wind/solar energy-harvesting device proposed here is a viable concept that is capable of generating up to 3-4 mW of total power, enough to meet the demand of remote sensors and small-scale portable electronics, for wind speeds varying from 0 m/s (calm) to about 26 m/s (storm/whole gale) and 1.8 kLux constant light exposure, suggesting a rather diversified range of potential practical applications.

A Filter Paper‐Based Nanogenerator via Water‐Drop Flow

“…[10][11][12][13] Various energies have been harvested using many kinds of nanogenerators, [4] such as triboelectric nanogenerators, [13] PENGs, [14] thermal-electric nanogenerators, [15] and photoelectric nanogenerators. [16] In addition, the as-harvested energy has various resources, such as wind, [17][18][19] heat energy, [20,21] solar power, [22] vibration, [23,24] mechanical energy, [25] electromagnetic waves, [26] chemical energy, [27] and water energy. [11,28,29] Therein, the nanogengerator induced from water-flow [30][31][32][33][34] and water evaporation [29,35] is a majority part of the water energy nanogenerator.…”

Testing guidelines for connection of solar photovoltaic farm to distribution grid: The Malaysian experience

“…Generally, a PV generation plant can be connected to the power grid using central inverter or string inverter . Both inverters have different connection framework, which can affect the costing, installation, operation and maintenance procedure of the system.…”

Analytical and numerical fluid–structure interaction study of a microscale piezoelectric wind energy harvester

“…However, the need for regularly replacing or recharging batteries makes their application costly and cumbersome. Due to these concerns, technologies capable of generating electrical power by harvesting environmental energy have been considered as a promising alternative for batteries, especially for autonomous devices operating for long periods with no human intervention, 3–6 and various types of such technologies have been developed for harvesting energy from different sources like solar power, thermal gradients, mechanical vibrations, and air and water flows 7,8 …”