Energy harvesting using piezoelectricity

Our idea describes an approach to harvest electrical energy from mechanically excited piezoelectric elements. In the wake of depleting fossil fuels and the damage it inflicts on mother earth, makes it a compelling case for a renewable and sustainable source of energy. Our project is a step in that direction. The basic idea is to put back into use the energy expended by us in daily course of life. Specifically, we attempted to convert pressure exerted on the ground by individuals while walking or by vehicles travelling on the road to excite piezoelectric elements. While the phenomenon of piezoelectricity is well known for decades, to harness its potential we have come about with a novel methodology of connecting piezoelectric elements with an apt circuitry to yield maximum power. The Piezoelectric sensor which gives voltage on the application of pressure is unregulated DC Voltage. The DC Voltage obtained is passed through a power conditioning source and then given to a storage source (rechargeable Lithium-Ion battery). The rate at which the storage source gets charged is where our module stands out as an efficient and innovative module to harness the plenteous potential energy. There is a paucity of power generated from a single Peizo-Electric transducer. We have developed a prototype wherein we connect a couple hundreds of Piezoelectric sensors followed by a combination of well designed circuitry that involves efficiently designed DC-DC converters, (schottky) diodes, charging circuit. In this paper we have given a unique scheme of harnessing and taking this iota of power and converting it into a substantial amount of power which in-turn will charge a Lithium Ion battery in couple of hours. This makes our innovation industrially relevant particularly in remote areas where it is uneconomical to transmit electricity by traditional means. Cellular phone towers located in the remote areas is a case in point.