Development of Solar assisted electric bicycle
Abstract
As the crude-oil reserves are depleting day-by-day and pollution is the major threat while using these energy sources, the human community has to move to renewable sources of energy. Among the renewable sources, solar power is available throughout the year in India and India has a solar power potential of 5GW. In order to utilize the huge power potential we had designed a vehicle with solar power. According to a source, India stands at fourth place after China with 3.2 lakh barrels in fuel consumption. With this large import India spends a huge currency from foreign reserves and if this project is implemented with subsidies a large share of foreign exchange can be saved. Bicycle being the cheapest mode of transport in India it can be easily affordable to the poor people. With sufficient alterations in design it can be used to move at a higher speed than pedaled bicycles and also it reduces human effort. The bicycle consists of solar panel of 100W capacity and batteries of 24Ah,12V are used. There is a provision in this vehicle to charge the vehicle with the grid power, thus making it flexible when solar power is not available. The solar assisted bicycle uses a 850W hub motor fitted with the front wheel and potentiometer is provided to vary the speed of the vehicle. Solar charge controller is used to monitor
the charging of batteries using solar panel.With our research we are able to convert a bicycle into a solar assisted electric bicycle. It is free of emissions and completely eco-friendly. Comparatively, this vehicle is of lower cost than the commercially available battery operated bicycles .The reliability of commercial battery bicycles with respect to riding distance/charge is lower than that of our fabricated model.
Author
Ravisankar.T, Abubakkar .A, Makesh Kumar K
Download
