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HARVESTING ENERGY FROM RAINFALL

Working Paper · January 2017

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1830.2968

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 HARVESTING ENERGY FROM RAINFALL
Pranesh.S
III-Electrical and Electronics Engineering
Sri Shakthi Institute of Engineering and Technology
Coimbatore,Tamilnadu
[email protected]

Abstract: The goal of this project is to utilize

energy stored in rain water to provide power to the
buildings, which are situated in the regions,
affected by power cuts during summer. This can be
achieved by making use of a structured disposal
pipeline system, use of individual small scale
generator turbine, and use of piezoelectric
generators to harness the kinetic energy of falling Figure 1
water. This project deals with the required piping
design needed for maximum power output. This This system converts the energy of falling rain
project also highlights the advantages and the drops in two ways.
shortcomings of the proposed design. A. Utilizing the potential head available at
Keywords: Renewable, Piezoelectric, Inelastic, PVDF building tops
Multi-storey buildings having large terrace
1. INTRODUCTION areas act can act as water reservoirs. The water
accumulated can be made to pass through a
Fast production demands fast utilization of turbine situated at result in generation of
resources. One such major resource is electricity. electricity.
Electricity is the lifeline for all the industrial work. B. Utilizing the kinetic energy of falling
Rising standard of living and development of raindrops These consist of using piezoelectric
technology has made use of appliances imperative materials to convert the mechanical energy of
in our day to day life. Thus there is also a vast rise falling drops into electricity.
in power consumption in residential areas. In order Piezoelectric materials exhibit the unique
to suffice the growing power demands, we are now property known as the piezoelectric effect.
largely dependent on the extraction of power from When these materials are subjected to a
non-conventional, renewable sources of energy. compressive or tensile stress, an electric field is
This paper focuses largely on the areas receiving generated across the material creating the
moderate to heavy rainfall. Solar and wind energy voltage difference resulting in current flow. This
are the major forms of renewable energy our effect asymmetric nature of their unit cell when
mankind look forward to. a stress As seen in Figure, the unit cell contains
Apart from these, high rainfall regions can also a small positive charges particle in the centre.
utilize the rain to generate power on residential When a stress is applied this particle becomes
basis. This work could be considered as a good shifted in one direction which creates a charge
alternative to power systems in raining outdoor distribution, and subsequent electric field. These
environments where solar energy is difficult to materials come in several different forms. The
exploit [2]. Following figure shows the brief block most common is crystals, but they are also found
diagram of this project. as plastics and ceramics.
 Power generated/day=no*d*(0.1*100)*9.81*H

Considering density of water=1000kg/m3,

Head H=50m with no =0.7. The total power
output from the turbine will be P=3.4 MJ/ day.
Thus power generated in the entire rainy season
will be about 340MJ for a building of 50m
Figure 2: Lattice structure of piezoelectric crystals
2
height and roof area of 100m .
The power generated from above methods are then
stored in storage batteries. This power can be used
2.2. Piezoelectric Generators
during summer when there are large power cuts.
This method aims at utilizing the kinetic
2. COMPONENTS AND DESIGN energy of the falling drop, to generate electricity.
Scientists from CEA/Leti-Minatec, an R&D
2.1. Turbines institute in Grenoble, France, specializing in
microelectronics, have recently developed a
For utilization of the potential head of the system that recovers the vibration energy from a
accumulated water, the water is channeled through piezoelectric structure impacted by a falling
pipes and made to pass through turbine situated at raindrop [4].
the ground level. The dis-charge out from the
guiding pipe will be in the range of several liters/
min.
This is a low discharge condition and hence
Pelton wheel will result in higher efficiencies. For
multi-storey buildings ‘H’ m tall. The potential
3
energy of volume V m of water accumulated will
be equal to
Figure 3
Potential energy= d*V*g H
The raindrop falling from the sky is
Where, d= density of rain water accelerated along its motion. This tends to
increase its velocity. At the same time the Drag
2
g= acceleration due to gravity (9.81 m/s ) force offered by the air increases as its velocity
increase. At a certain point the drop experiences
For regions receiving heavy rainfall during equilibrium and the drop continues to fall with a
monsoon of about 100mm per day, the potential constant speed called as terminal velocity. It is
energy available per day for the buildings with this kinetic energy of the drop which gets
2 converted into electricity due to piezoelectric
terrace area of 100m is materials.

P.E available/day=d*(0.1*100)*9.81H

The accumulated water is made to pass through

a nozzle on the turbine blades. The power
generated per day with an overall
efficiency of ‘no’is
 the variation in power generated for various drop
sizes.
Table 1. Variation in power generated for various
drop sizes [2]
Types of Cable Recovera- Recovera- Recoverable
drop dimen- ble voltage ble electric- instantane-
sion al energy ous power
Rain: L:10cm 1.6V 1.7nJ 1.8uW
D: 1mm W:3mm

Figure 4: Piezoelectric effect in quartz V:2.8m/s H:25um

Medium L:10cm 3V 5nJ 2.5uW
D:2mm W:3mm
V:0.75m/s H:25um
When a raindrop impacts a surface, it produces a Down- L:10cm 98V 25uJ 12.5mW
pour W:1.3cm
perfectly inelastic shock. [4] For application in
D:5mm H:25um
our rain drop scenario we have to consider a V:5.7m/s
membrane material sensitive to surface impacts.
Refer to diagram below for a simplified Based on data available, energy generated for a
representation of our system. To capture the span of 4 months in a region having rainfall of
raindrops’ mechanical energy, we can use a 100mm per day will be approximately 21.6 kJ
PVDF (polyvinylidene fluoride) polymer, a per sq.m of converter area. Thus for a converter
piezoelectric material that converts mechanical area of 100 sq.m, the energy generated will be
energy into electrical energy. When a raindrop nearly 2.16MJ for the entire season.
impacts the 25-micrometer-thick PVDF, the
polymer starts to vibrate. Electrodes embedded in 2.3. Design of Rooftops
the PVDF are used to recover the electrical
charges generated by the vibrations [4]. The important factor to be considered in
implementation of this project is the design of
rooftops. Rain water making contact with the
roof tops will be used to generate electricity in
above mentioned two ways.
Power generated by the turbine is due to the
flow of water accumulated on the rooftops of
buildings. For maximum power generation,
majority of the rain water from the roof top
must be channeled down the pipe. For this, the
roof surface must be provided with 5-10
Figure 5: Schematic diagram of vibration – electrical degrees of inclination with the horizontal.
converter assembly Also, multiple outlets must be provided for
Various tests conducted by the various researches large terraces so that there is maximum
showed that, the instantaneous power converted outflow of water and minimum water logging.
per rain drop for a converter area of few sq.cms Also for maximum power output from
ranges from few micro watts and goes up to 12mW piezoelectric generators, rain drops need to
[2]. strike the surface every single time. Water
The recoverable energy depends directly on the accumulation results in piezoelectric sensors
size of the piezoelectric membrane, the size of getting submerged thus rendering them
raindrops, and their frequency.The available useless. Hence proper inclination of 5-10
energy per drop varies between 2 µJ from 1 MJ degrees must be provided.
depending on its size [2]. Following table shows
 3. BENEFITS AND DRAWBACKS [1] “Rainfall as an Energy source”, Curt Harting,
Physics 240, Stanford university, November
3.1. Benefits 2010

1. This system can be considered an [2] “Harvesting Rainfall”, Askel Bode, Project 1,
alternative to power systems in rainy outdoor Phys575, 14th February 2012,
environments where solar energy is difficult to
gather. [3] “Residential Piezoelectric Energy Sources”,
2. This is a clean source of energy with Andrew Katz, delta smart house, 21st July
zero pollutant emissions. 2004.
3. This energy generation method is
independent of time of the day. It is fully [4] “Rain power: Harvesting Energy from sky”,
functional during day as well as night. Lisa Zyga, January 2008.
4. Use of new renewable sources of
electricity is the need of the day and [5] Micka¨el Lallart,_ Shashank Priya, Scott
advancement in piezo sensor industry will Bressers and Daniel Inman, “small scale
improve the output capacity. piezoelectric energy harvesting devices using
low energy density sources”, Journal of Korean
Physical society, vol 57, no 4, pp. 947-951,
October 2010.
3.2. Drawbacks

1. Electricity produced by these means, at

present would cost more than electricity generated
from fossil fuels at their current costs.
2. The Piezoelectric sensors and turbine that
is needed to be installed are costly components.
3. Power generated is very low for direct use.
For effective utilization in needed times, the
energy generated must be stored in batteries which
also increase the system cost.
4. Such system is only operational during
rainy season. Thus the payback period of this plan
is quite large.

4. CONCLUSION

The current power output of this project is very less

with respect to the power consumption. The
investment cost is high and returns are low, thus
currently it can’t be implemented. Piezoelectric
technology can also be used to empower mobile
objects like cars and busses. Constant research in
the field piezoelectric materials assures the
potential of this project.

References

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