lightning as a new renewable energy...

LIGHTNING AS A NEW RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE

SARAVANA KUMAR A/L ARPUTHASAMY

UNIVERSITI TEKNOLOGI MALAYSIA

LIGHTNING AS A NEW RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCE

SARAVANA KUMAR A/L ARPUTHASAMY

A project report submitted in partial fulfilment of the

requirements for the award of the degree of

Master of Engineering (Electrical – Power)

Faculty of Electrical Engineering

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

JANUARY 2015

III

To my family who loves me,

for their understandings and encouragements towards my study.

IV

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like thank god for the blessing and guidance that strength

myself and inspire me to do this project. In preparing in this thesis, a lot of people have shared

their knowledge and contribute their ideas to conduct this project successfully. I would like to

express my sincere appreciation and gratitude to my supervisor Mr. Zulkarnain Bin Noorden for

his guidance, advices and support to do this project.

Apart from that, I also would like to express my appreciation to my family who has been

very supportive to me all these years. Their encouragement enables me to concentrate and

complete this project successfully.

Finally I would like to expand my appreciation to all the people who has contributed

and support me directly or indirectly during this project.

V

ABSTRACT

Lightning is a massive electrostatic discharge which occurs naturally. It consist of

huge amount of voltage and current. It has been estimated that 40 to 50 lightning strike

somewhere on the earth surface in a second. Annually around 1.4 billion of lightning strike

occurs worldwide. Although the number of strike is very high lightning energy could not

be convert to useful energy yet. Malaysia is one the country with tremendous lightning

activity. As such, it better to initiate a study on lightning harnessing and promote it as new

renewable energy sources that could be converted to useful electrical energy. Lightning

can be a solution for the power crisis which is mostly depends on the non-renewable

resources. However, there are some challenges in considering lightning as an alternative

choice of energy. It is very hard to predict the location of lightning strike and harness the

lightning energy because lightning strike occurs within few microseconds. In this

research, the possible methods of converting lightning energy into useful electrical energy

are studied and the best method that could practically applied will be proposed.

VI

ABSTRAK

Kilat adalah nyahcas elektrostatik besar-besaran yang berlaku secara semula jadi.

Ia terdiri daripada voltan dan arus yang amat besar. Ia telah dianggarkan bahawa 40 hingga

50 kilat menyerang di sesuatu tempat di permukaan bumi dalam masa satu saat. Setiap

tahun kira-kira 1.4 bilion kilat berlaku di seluruh dunia . Walaupun bilangan sambaran

kilat adalah sangat tinggi tetapi kilat tidak boleh ditukar kepada tenaga yang berguna.

Malaysia merupakan salah satu negara dengan aktiviti kilat besar. Oleh itu, lebih baik

untuk memulakan kajian mengenai kilat pemanfaatan dan mempromosikannya sebagai

sumber tenaga boleh diperbaharui baru yang boleh ditukar kepada tenaga elektrik yang

berguna. Kilat boleh menjadi penyelesaian untuk krisis kuasa yang kebanyakannya

bergantung kepada sumber-sumber yang tidak boleh diperbaharui. Walau bagaimanapun,

terdapat beberapa cabaran dalam menimbangkan kilat sebagai pilihan tenaga alternatif. Ia

amat sukar untuk meramalkan lokasi sambaran kilat dan memanfaatkan tenaga kilat

kerana kilat berlaku dalam masa yang singkat iaitu beberapa mikrosaat. Dalam kajian ini

, kaedah yang mungkin bagi menukarkan tenaga kilat menjadi tenaga elektrik yang

berguna dikaji dan kaedah yang terbaik yang boleh digunakan akan dicadangkan.

VII

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER TITLE PAGE

DECLARATION II

DEDICATION III

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT IV

ABSTRACT V

ABSTRAK VI

TABLE OF CONTENTS VII

LIST OF TABLES X

LIST OF FIGURES XI

LIST OF SYMBOLS XIV

1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Background Information 1

1.2 Problem Statement 3

1.3 Objective 3

1.4 Scope of Work 4

VIII

2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Lightning 5

2.2 Clouds 8

2.3 Properties of Lightning 9

2.4 World Lightning Trend 10

2.5 Lightning Trend in Malaysia 13

2.6 Harnessing Lightning Energy 16

2.6.1 Harnessing Lightning using Rocket Launcher 16

2.6.2 Harnessing Lightning Using Laser 18

2.6.3 Lightning Energy Storage Using Capacitor 20

2.6.4 Lightning Harnessing by Energy Conversion 22

3 METHODOLOGY 24

3.1 Literature Study 24

3.2 Determination of Lightning Harnessing Method 26

3.3 Simulation and Calculation 26

3.4 Result Comparison 30

4 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION 31

4.1 Lightning Generator 31

4.2 Capacitor Storage Method 36

4.2.1 Result Analysis 49

4.3 Energy Conversion Method 54

4.3.1 Result Analysis 57

4.4 Comparison between Capacitor Storage Method 59

and Energy Conversion Method

IX

5 CONCLUSION 61

REFERENCES 63

X

LIST OF TABLE

TABLE NO. TITLE PAGE

2.1 The Cities with top rate of thunderstorm in a year 12

2.2 Average Thunderstorm day in Malaysia from 1997-2002 15

4.1 Parameters of Lightning Generator 32

4.2 Energy stored and energy efficiency of the capacitor 0.2uF 51



4.5 Heat Energy Generated Across the Resistor 57

XI

LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE NO. TITLE PAGE

2.1 Ice splinter theory illustration diagram 6

2.2 Charge separation and types of lightning illustration 7

2.3 Average world thunderstorm days per year 11

2.4 Keraunic Level in Peninsula Malaysia in 2013 13

2.5 Artificial lightning triggering method using rocket launching 17

2.6 Laser triggered lightning 19

2.7 Specific power versus specific energy 21

2.8 Lightning harnessing via energy conversion method 22

3.1 Flow chart of project progress 25

3.2 Single stage impulse voltage generator circuit 27

3.3 Storage capacitor connected to the lightning generator 28

3.4 Circuit diagram with 3 units of storage capacitor

connected in parallel 28

3.5 Circuit diagram for energy conversion method 29

4.1 Circuit design of lightning generator 33

4.2 Simulation result across load capacitor, Cb 34

4.3 Lightning generator with additional two normally closed switches 35

XII

4.4 Simulation result across Cb with two additional normally 36

closed switches

4.5 One unit storage capacitor o.2uF connected to the circuit 37

4.6 Simulation result with one unit storage capacitor 0.2uF 37

4.7 Two unit storage capacitor 0.2uF connected to the circuit 38

4.8 Simulation result with two unit storage capacitor 0.2uF 38

4.9 Three units storage capacitor 0.2uF connected to the circuit 39

4.10 Simulation result with three units of storage capacitors 0.2uF 39

4.11 The voltage efficiency across the storage capacitor 0.2uF 40

4.12 One unit storage capacitor 0.3uF connected to the circuit 41







4.19 One unit storage capacitor 0.4uF connected to the circuit 45





XIII



4.26 10Ω resistor connected to the lightning generator 55

4.27 Simulation result with 10Ω resistor connected to the circuit 55

4.28 10kΩ resistor connected to the lightning generator 56

4.29 Simulation result with 10kΩ resistor connected to the circuit 56

XIV

LIST OF SYMBOLS

E - Electric Field

D - Distance

M - Total Electric moment

T - Time

c - Speed of light

RD - Resistor (front time)

RE - Resistor (tail time)

CS - Charging capacitor

CB - Load capacitor

tt - Tail time

tf - Front time

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background Information

Power crisis is the major issue widely discussed all around the world. A lot power

generation methods using fuels and coals have been discovered and successfully

implemented in most of the countries. However these methods have been jeopardized by

the non-availability of the energy resources. Some researchers had identified that these

non-renewable sources may deplete in future. In addition, fuel and coal prices in the word

market has been increased rapidly. As such, most of the countries in the world focus on

renewable energy sources to replace the non-renewable energy sources. Some of the

renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, tidal, and hydro already used in power

generation by many countries in the world. Besides these renewable energy sources,

lightning also can be considered as a new renewable source.

Benjamin Franklin was the first who have discovered the theory of electricity in

lightning [1]. Following by this theory, a lot of studies and researches have been done to

identify the source of lightning and the possibilities of harnessing the lightning energy.

Lightning phenomena involves huge amount of voltage and current which occur within

extremely short time period. A single lightning bolt consists of massive amount of energy

which carries approximately 5GW [2]. This amount of energy is equals to the energy that

2

can be produced by 145 liters of petrol. Moreover, it has been estimated that lightning

strike occurs within the range of 40 to 50 times every second worldwide resulting in 1.4

billion times a year [3]. Malaysia in one of the country with tremendous lightning activity.

In 2010, Richard Kithil Jr (Chairman of the US National Lightning Safety Institute

(NLSI)), has revealed during a talk held in University Putra Malaysia (UPM) that

Malaysia has second highest number of lightning strikes in the world [4]. Besides that,

Malaysian Meteorological department recorded 362 days of lightning strike in Subang [5].

These facts shows that Malaysia as one of the potential country to consider lightning as a

new renewable energy.

The ultimate objective of this research is to identify the methods available to

harness or convert lightning energy as a useful energy source. However, until now the

practical technology in harnessing lightning energy for the large scale system was not

been developed yet. Basically, the challenges in developing a practical lightning

harnessing system can be divided into few stages. First is locating the lightning strike. It

very difficult to predict the exact point where the lightning strike but there is some

techniques to trigger the lightning artificially to a specific point. Next obstacles are to store

the lightning transient voltage in a very short period of time and maintain it. The main

focus of this research is to overcome these issues and models a practical lightning

harnessing system in Malaysia.

Storage of lightning energy is one of crucial part in harnessing lightning energy as

a new renewable energy. The various methods of harnessing the lightning energy

discussed in this research. First method is using rocket launcher and the second method is

using laser. Besides that capacitor storage method can be considered as possible method

3

to harness lightning energy. Last but not least, energy conversion method is also can

contribute in storing the lightning energy. To investigate the storage system, a lightning

impulse generator used in simulation to produce lightning. On the other hand, it is very

dangerous to obtain the real lightning energy. A simulation model will be developed to

study further on the storage system

1.2 Problem Statement

Power generation extremely dependent on fuels like petrol, diesel, bio diesel, coal and this

source may deplete one day. Besides that it is also harmful for the environment. Since

Malaysia is one of the countries with tremendous lightning activity, we may consider

lightning as new clean source of power generation to replace the fuels and coal. As such,

the possible method on harnessing the lightning energy is investigated in this research.

1.3 Objectives

i) To analyze lightning as a potential renewable energy source.

ii) To study on available technologies in storing the lightning energy.

iii) To model different configuration of lightning storage system circuit design and

calculation.

4

1.4 Scope of Work

i) Analyze lightning as a potential renewable energy source.

ii) Study on available technologies in harnessing the lightning energy.

iii) Modelling lightning harnessing circuit using Pspice software and calculate the energy

stored.

63

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Electrical & Computer Engineering, Dalhousie University, Canada

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Forks: The Energy Yield of a Lightning Bolt, Department of Physics and Astrnomy,

University of Leicester, England.

[3] S. Malavika, S. Vishal, (2013), Harnessing Electrical Energy From Lightning,

Thiagarajar College of Engineering, India.

[4] The Star, (2010), Malaysia Has Second Highest Number of Lightning Strikes in the

world.

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[6] M.F.M Basar, M.H. Jamaluddin, H.Zainuddin, A.Jidin, M.S.M. Aras, (2010), Design

and Development of A Small Scale System for Harvesting the Lightning Stroke

http://www.met.gov.my/

64

Using the Impulse Voltage Generator at HV Lab, UTeM, Faculty of Electrical

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to Use Lightning Energy, University of Puerto Rico.

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65

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A.Schnetzer and Keith J Rambo, (2006), Estimation of Input Energy in Rocket

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66

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menu.

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