Edinburgh Napier University

  This project was carried out for Campers Scotland company to investigate the feasibility of using various renewable energy sources to supply small electrical loads within the caravan. The power required to the loads was estimated to be in the range of 289 – 424W; therefore, different types of solar cells and wind turbines were investigated. Hence, from the solar side of view, a 300W monocrystalline panel was chosen due to the advantages of high conversion efficiency, long stability and the ability of performing under low sunlight levels. However, a percentage of solar radiation stores in the panel as heat which decreases the conversion efficiency. A potential solution is to use the thermal energy stored to heat domestic water by using medium-temperature phase change materials (PCMs). In addition, this project looked into improving the thermal efficiency by using nanoparticles with PCMs. For the wind energy, a 600W horizontal axis wind turbine (HAWT) was proposed based on the average annual wind speed of four main cities in Scotland: Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Dundee. However, due to the intermittency of the renewable sources, an energy storage technology is required to acts as a buffer. Therefore, electromechanical energy storage types were investigated to find that supercapacitor has the highest efficiency and the longest lifetime in term of circulations.