A Piezoelectric Green Energy Source for Powering Traffic Lights and Charging Mobile Phones

Abstract

Electricity has become a major need of present day civilization and its demand is increasing rapidly. This increasing demand renders some electrical loads unable to function; these loads may be the traffic lights on our roads which use the national grid as their main source of power supply. In order to satisfy the rising energy demands of electricity, a cleaner and renewable power source needs to be explored. This paper emphasized on one of the promising electricity generation methods using piezoelectric materials. In this work the Navy type III Lead Zirconate Titanate (PZT) material was employed. A circuit was designed to convert the pressure from moving vehicles on our roads into an electric power to power the traffic lights and also charge mobile phones. In the design, microcontroller was used to read the charging rate of the battery and the result was displayed on a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). The design was simulated using Proteus 8.3 Professional software. The results from the simulations indicated that the power generated is sufficient to power the traffic lights and also charge mobile phones.