Project Report Cover Page

Transcription

1 New York State Pollution Prevention Institute R&D Program Student Competition Project Report Cover Page University/College Name Team Name Team Member Names SUNY Buffalo UB-Engineers for a Sustainable World Matthew Klimek Matthew Kaiser Lucas Gordon External Affiliation/Business Partner Project Name Environmental area/opportunity addressed Solar Charging Station Alternative Energy Please provide a brief one paragraph summary of your project: The Solar Charging Station is an outdoor structure that will be used to charge electronic devices using sustainable solar energy. To accomplish this, the structure will be designed based on a picnic table with modifications to allow for required equipment. To allow for maximum usability as well as visual appeal, the table will be a hexagon shape with a center post going from ground to approximately 10 feet off the ground. This pole will be used to affix a solar panel, as it will be the sole provider of energy to the system. The devices being charged will include both cell phones and laptops. This design will allow students to sit at the station while their devices are being charged, allowing it to become a location for homework or relaxing. Student Team Member Signatures

2 Solar Changing Station Problem Statement On a personal level, the general public does not have a large exposure to renewable energy. For many people alternative energy sources are an expensive investment that can be hard to justify. On top of the expense of purchasing the equipment required to create a personal renewable energy grid, the decreasing price of traditional energy sources is making it more difficult to justify. Because this large financial gap exists in favor of non-renewable sources, it slows the spread of alternative energy despite its advantages for the environment. Our project addresses the challenge of getting the public eye on alternative energy at a small scale. If students can be witness to the advantages of renewable energy than it will help its adoption. This project will also result in financial savings for the owner and/or user of the product. Not only are alternative energies good for the environment, but they can cost less in the long term. Solar energy in particular, gathers sunlight that is available almost every day. Because of this energy can be collected and used when there is not sunlight available without costing any money for fossil fuel energy. This will also allow for minimal maintenance costs as the charging station is essentially self-sustaining. Project Summary Our project is an electronic device charging station that is powered solely by the sun. This station will be placed on the University at Buffalo campus and will be open to anyone. Currently on campus, the are several ways to charge electronic devices that include standard wall outlets, charging kiosks, and using PC USB ports. Although all of these methods are easily

3 accessible and work well for charging laptops, cell phones, and tablets, they are all powered through the same power source and are limited to being inside buildings and other power sources. Our project presents a solution to this as it can be placed anywhere without any connection to other sources. For the most part, this power source is power from the grid. In Buffalo, we do have some advantages when it comes to energy sources. Due to our proximity to Niagara Falls, much of our power comes from hydro power. At UB we also have a 750,000 watt solar array that helps power the school. Although both of these sources are sustainable and help provide sustainable power to the university, the rest of our power is still derived from fossil fuels. Our project, which is a small scale solar powered station, will allow students see the impact that they are making on the environment while they charge their device. This is unique from the other charging sources mentioned previously as it is a personal approach to powering devices. Most students are not aware of how their devices are powered or the extent of its environmental and financial impact. By placing the power source directly with the charging ports, students will be able to see the entire power flow. In order to help us complete the project, we contacted Praxair, a local industrial gas supply company. The provided us with a grant for $ which allowed us to purchase the electronics necessary to display the information we collect from the solar panel and batteries on the station. Being able to display the information we gather in an easily understandable way will help students be able to understand the impact they are making by using the solar charging station. We also partnered with the Engineers for a Sustainable World University at Buffalo (ESW-UB) chapter. By collaborating with them, we were able to get additional ideas from

4 actual potential users of the station. This allowed us to form our design into a product that students would enjoy using and would meet any requirements that those students may need. The members of ESW-UB also submitted design ideas that were considered into the final design. ESW-UB also provided us with donations of several key components necessary for the completion of the project. These donations included the solar panel and charge controller. Relationship to Sustainability Our project promotes sustainability from both a social and economic standpoint. Socially, we are allowing students to have firsthand experience with solar energy and the benefit that it provides. By being able to sit at the source of power that is going directly into a phone or computer, students can see what powering electronics with a sustainable source is like. Using the displays we have on the station, the amount of power going in through the panel, as well as the amount of power being outputted through the batteries can be seen by the users. This will be then translated to a figure that is relatable to those that do not necessarily understand measurements in watts, such as number of phones charged. This will allow everyone to see the impact that they are making by using the solar charging station to charge their devices instead of powering off the grid. Because the station will be placed at the University at Buffalo near the dormitories, it will be in a location that is easily seen and accessed by students. This will maximize the impact that it will make. In its location, it will be surrounded by other tables and benches where students regularly spend time doing homework, eating, or just relaxing. By allowing those students to have the additional functionality of charging devices, it will increase student interest in taking part in sustainability.

5 On a cloudy day when the solar panel is not taking in energy, the battery storage has the ability to charge an average of 24 students phones from empty to full. When it is sunny and there is also incoming energy from the solar panel, the number of devices that can be charged in a day will only be limited by the number of ports on the station. We envision this solar charging station to be a project that can be deployed in large numbers across campus, allowing a much larger impact to be had. If we take into account conservative estimates, having 100 charging stations across campus would allow for a savings of 36 kwh of energy to be saved a day. This relates to saving approximately 10,000 kwh or 8 tons of CO2 per year. This results in monetary savings for the school and less greenhouse gas emissions. Materials and Methods The work on the Solar Charging Station was done in several phases. The initial phase of the project involved the design of the station. In order to make the project successful, we met with students in ESW-UB to decide what features should be included and what would be the optimal design so that the structure appealed to students. From there, an initial design was chosen for the structure which is based off of an octagon shaped picnic table. This allows for up to eight people to sit at the table at a time. From this the appropriate electronics were determined to provide power to those eight students devices simultaneously and allow for data collection. The second phase of the project was construction. Because weather in Buffalo is not constant or warm during the early months of the year, construction had to be pushed back to March. Although this left limited time to complete the constructing and testing of the project, it was necessary. In order complete the construction, wood and hardware was purchased to build the structure. The structure was completed before electronic equipment was added to it. This was determined to be the best method as the electronics could be tested separately without the

6 completion of the structure. The construction was done primarily by the three team members, but additional assistance was received from members of ESW-UB. Matthew Klimek served as the project leader. He was responsible for organizing meetings, obtaining the final location of the stand, part design, electrical system design, and coordinating with vendors. Matthew Kaiser served as co-project leader and lead software designer. He was responsible for assisting in final design decisions, writing the software for the stations display, the creation of a public webpage to display results, choosing the hardware to implement the software on, and electrical design. Lucas Gordon served as lead structural designer. He was responsible for modeling the physical structure, electronic storage design, and choosing materials to construct the structure from. Outside contributions came from our advisor, Dr. James Jensen, as well as members of ESW-UB as mentioned previously. Results, Evaluation, and Demonstration Our project resulted in an important addition to the University at Buffalo campus. The final project gives students the ability to charge their electronic devices in an area that is readily available to them. This puts alternative energy into the focus of both the students that are and are not familiar with alternative energy sources and the benefits that it has. This accomplished the primary goal of the project by getting students socially involved. As the weather continues to improve, more and more students will be willing to go outside to use the stand. Currently in March with the weather fluctuating between days of 60 degrees and 30 degrees, the use of the stand is understandably inconsistent. Because of this weather, it is difficult to receive exact data regarding the amount of energy that is being saved by the University. Once the weather improves, more students will be

7 able to go to the charging station allowing more to be saved. This forces us to rely on the charging stations potential energy savings for reference. With four, 18 amp hour batteries as storage, the station contains the energy necessary to fully charge 24 large phone batteries from empty to full. If this is done every day, it will result in a yearly savings of approximately 10 kwh from one stand. This would reduce the energy costs of the school by $2.00 per year, and more importantly, cut CO2 emissions by 0.08 tons per year. Although this may seem insignificant, by taking many of these stations they can combined make a significant savings in both cost and emissions. The small financial savings of the stand do result in a long payback period to the extent that it could be considered worthless, but that would not be factoring in the social impact of the charging station. If the stand gives one in ten students the drive to use solar panels at their personal residence, then it could influence approximately 2,900 people per year. If each of these students were to place a solar array on their residence, then the amount of small scale solar energy generation would increase significantly. Our project was designed with scalability in mind. Our structure was created using standard materials that could be purchased by anyone wanting to recreate it. All of the electronics are also retail pieces, meaning that anyone could go online and purchase the required components. Because of this, we envision a campus where every outdoor structure could incorporate a system similar to ours. If this were to be scaled to 100 charging stations, then the university could save approximately $2000 per year as well as 8 tons of CO2 per year. The project could also be scaled to a larger system than ours. If charging stations were built to accommodate a larger number of students, then the savings would be scaled proportionally. This

8 would allow a larger exposure to solar energy as well, as more people would be able to witness it advantages. We will be presenting our project at the exhibition event using a poster with electronic visual aids. Because of the Solar Charging Stations size, it prevents it from being transported to be seen in person. To accommodate for this, a 3D model will be available so that all aspects of the design can be seen. The charging station also features a connection to the internet, allowing it to update and track the incoming and outgoing energy. This will be posted to a website that anyone can access at any point. Conclusion From our project, we learned that a simple, functional design can increase the interest of students in alternative energy sources. The project met all of our initial design goals, being easily accessible, effective at generating enough power for student s devices, and increasing social awareness. In order to further validate our project, the status of the charging station will continue to be monitored to see its long term impact. Data points will be collected for both the status of the batteries and solar panel, as well as the amount of power being drawn by charging. In order to improve our design, we will take the information gathered from our data collection and use it to revise the charging capabilities accordingly. If more outlets are required to meet the demand of users, more can be added, but it will likely require more battery capacity to provide the higher load. Alternatively, if the outlets are not being used frequently and only the USB ports are being used for power, we can eliminate the outlets from future designs, eliminating cost from building the structure.

9 This project has the possibility of being implemented not only at our school, but in locations across the country. The success of this station could have even more significance at a location where it is warm enough to be outside all year round. The Solar Charging Station does not only have to be implemented at schools. It also has potential to be used at other public locations such as parks. As prices of solar panels continue to decrease, the station will reach a point where it also becomes feasible for private residences as well.