Energy Harvesting Mechanisms in a Smart City—A Review

Ajibike Eunice Akin-Ponnle,Nuno Borges Carvalho

doi:10.3390/smartcities4020025

Ajibike Eunice Akin-Ponnle, Nuno Borges Carvalho

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/smartcities4020025

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Abstract

The issue of how to power the deployed Internet of Things (IoT) nodes with ubiquitous and long lasting energy in order to ensure uninterruptible optimisation of smart cities is of utmost concern. This among other challenges has continued to gear efforts toward energy harvesting research. With the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown that nearly paralysed activities of everyday living in many nations of the world, option of human remote interaction to enforce social distancing became imperative. Hence, the world is witnessing a renewed awareness of the importance of IoT devices, as integral components of smart city, especially for the essence of survival in the face of lockdown. Energy harvesting is a possible solution that could enable IoT nodes to scavenge self-sustaining energy from environmental ambient sources. In this paper, we have reviewed most sources within city that energy could be harvested from, as reported by researchers in literature. In addition, we have submitted that energy sources can be application specific, such that, since there are many free sources in the city as presented in this review, energy should be scavenged within close proximity of need for various IoT devices or wireless sensor networks (WSNs), for smart city automation.

Highlights

Energy harvesting (EH) is the process by which energy that are rather wasted in the environment are converted into usable sources to power autonomous devices
There are so many sources of ambient energy in human environment that could be explored to generate sustainable energy to enhance the promising fields of Internet of Things and wireless sensor networks (WSNs), especially the devices of IoT for smart city actualisation
Energy can be harvested directly at the particular close proximity of application because ambient energy is available in almost every place that there is vibration, sunlight, heat, wind, radio frequency, water, and many other naturally occurring sources

Summary

Introduction

Energy harvesting (EH) is the process by which energy that are rather wasted in the environment are converted into usable sources to power autonomous devices. The important features while referring to a smart city among other things are that objects and/or humans are connected to objects or humans through the internet: for example, buildings, cars, and home appliances are connected and relate with each other In this manner, the information about the smart city is made available to the planners of the city, and there is general automation of the city on challenging issues. The information about the smart city is made available to the planners of the city, and there is general automation of the city on challenging issues These concerns are the application areas such as access to instant health care delivery services, improvement in energy and transportation networks (despite increasing congestion of the city), improvement in human general daily living, safe guarding security intelligence services, instant rescue operations during natural disaster or fire outbreak, generating green energy sources to suppress carbon burning and climate change, among others [1,6,7,8]

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