Analysis of Pedal Power Energy Harvesting for Alternative Power Source

Abstract

Numerous research have been conducted to investigate the energy harvesting method from human motions such as walking, cycling and walking. The human power energy will be very important and useful to exploit in remote area, emergency and unexpected situations such as big flood and natural disasters. In these kinds of situations, there might be power shortage conditions and it will be very difficult to fulfill basic power necessities for instance to power up light, charging up mobile phones and other simple tasks. Out of variety of energy recovery techniques that exist, pedal motion electricity generation shows the most promising energy for large-scale recovery. The kinetic energy produced by pedaling motion can produce large amount of voltage up to 15 V to 30 V. Since bicycle is a commonly owned by vast range of people, cycling would offer us alternative power source. In this research, a prototype of stationary bike comprises mechanical and software part is developed to investigate the energy produced from pedal power. Different speeds are tested to analyze the amount of power produced. At the end of this research, it is found that at slow cycling speed, the time taken to full charge the 12 V battery is 14.02 h, whereas at high speed, the generated power is 5.44 V. The harvested electrical energy is enough to charge up mobile phone, light up low power LED light and fan during emergency situation.