Street lighting using hybrid solar/wind system for Balai Cerapan UTM

Global issues such as global warming, rising sea level, deprivation of fossil fuel and rising electricity cost have accelerated the research and development on alternative energy sources. In recent years, wind and solar sources have become the prominent source of alternative energy. Wind and solar sources are popularly integrated together in renewable energy systems because solar cells can produce the electricity needed during sunny days while wind turbines can cover the electricity needs during windy days. In UTM, there are lots of street lights, powered by utility electricity installed. As the campus area of UTM is very wide, the amount of electricity cost incurred to UTM is very high. Hence, in this study, an alternative has been searched to reduce the dependency on fossil fuel electricity. Therefore, an appropriate hybrid solar/micro wind unit into a dedicated LED street lighting system has been proposed and installed at UTM’s Balai Cerapan. The hybrid street light comprises of a 80W mini PV panel, a 300W micro wind turbine, a 90Ah battery, control unit and a 30W LED street light. The built in energy management control has been modified and tested to provide smarter control between PV panel and micro wind system throughout the day for a smarter energy management. This new algorithm is able to dim the LED lamp brightness when there is no motion detected. From the simulation, it has been found that potential energy savings of at least 77% can be achieved by using the new energy management algorithm. Hence, it can be concluded that the proposed hybrid solar/wind with dedicated LED street lighting system has been successfully installed, modified (through simulation) and operated at UTM’s Balai Cerapan. As implication, it is hoped that installation of this similar proposed units will help to save the UTM’s electricity bills on the street lighting purpose, without compromising the security and comfort to the users