What is known about the research problem?
Electricity is a kind of luxury that most people have taken for granted. Not very many people have bothered to know where electrical energy comes from and how it is made. In the current set, most countries are faced with shortage of energy rising from the depletion of the known sources like fossil fuel. As a result of these impacts, attention has been shifting from these non-renewable energy sources to the renewable sources. The DC house project aims to assist those communities that do not have access to the power grids and electricity. The DC house project uses renewable energy sources in the production of DC power(Werth, Kitamura and Tanaka 2015).
The DC power is converted into AC that is later connected to the generators of the company. The resulting power is utilized by the lighting systems, wall outlets and other home appliances. It is important to note that these conversions normally lead to power losses and eventually the effectiveness of the system is affected. Most of the lighting system including bulbs work on the principle of flow of electrons through the electric devices. Some of these appliances or devices are only compatible with the AC.The voltage of alternating current alternate at an average frequency of 50-60HZ.This will be dependent on the generator of the country. At these particular frequencies, it is not possible for the human eye to perform a proper detection of the changes of direction of electrons. The view of light is continuous.
LED light bulbs have become very popular and they have been replacing the other lesser efficient light bulbs. The car headlights, house lights and other street lights are only some of the many uses of LED bulbs. The bulbs that are made of the LED technology are nearly available everywhere. Unlike other light bulbs, LED bulbs need excess electronics to assist in the driving of the array safety from the AC power source. The driver of the LED consist of a power converter and a sensing circuit feedback that resembles the switched mode power supplies. The circuit for the power array allows the LED array to experience a controlled and very consistent voltage regardless of the type and the value of the input. The regulation is normally achieved through sensing circuit(Vossos, Garbesi and Shen 2014).
From such kinds of observation, it is clear that DC current is more efficient than AC since the process of inversion is skipped while giving the same functionality and result. The project of DC provides a clean solution to the communities that are poor(Tanaka et al 2012). Renewable energy devices normally perform transformation to the resources such as solar power,wind.These energy sources are converted into DC power by means of DC-DC converters. Each of the produced output is connected into the MISO converter so as to ensure that there is production of bus line to the DC house. The production voltage is maintained at the normal 480V.From the bus, the DC loads and other applications are connected to complete and self-sustaining home.
Determining the need for a quantitative and/or qualitative approach
This particular project seeks to expand on the functionality of the DC houses that had been previously designed to use light bulbs. In the process of that proposed expansion, flashlight adapter will be connected between the normal DC voltage of 480V of the house bus and the light bulb of LED. This additional feature of the DC house is very much important for the applications of the DC house especially in the areas that are considered remote. The flashlights will enable people to walk and do their duties during the night hours(Marks et al 2014). The project focuses on the design, testing and implementation of the portable light system of DC house project. The addition of the batteries to the system is normally meant to include the feature of portability as operational flashlights. Although the connection is done as a DC light bulb, the charging of batteries is through DC power that is produced by the house itself. This particular system of lighting uses the back DC-DC design with converter(Kakigano, Miura and Ise 2013).
The result of such connection is that the design of DC-DC is improved or boosted to the recommended level. The implementation of the hardware of the portable DC light bulbs will be conducted and tests performed so as to assist in the verification of the functionality, performance and operation of the system. The project phase’s focuses on the improvement of the past designs by including features that will push further the value of the project. The improvement will be done on the certain types of the commonly known convertors and also the concept expanded beyond its limit. Before conduction of the optimization, a complete prototype of the DC house will be built prior to the field implementation(Ismail, Moghavvemi and Mahlia 2013).
Selection qualitative and/or quantitative approaches
Selection of a quantitative approach
Define parameters or commonly known variables that might be required in the research-quantitative data sources.
In order to ensure that a very fair comparison is made, there will be proper identification of the DC houses. These prototypes will be subjected to the same patterns of simulation during the process of optimization. During the comparision,one of the houses will be fitted with the DC while the other with the AC so as to verify the differences. The performance measurement will be taken in the terms of;
- The brightness of light from the bulb
- The duration of bulb light performance in the flashlights.
The research on the bulb configuration and material type will equally be important since they determine the performance of the system.
Factors indicating the need for a quantitative methodology for the research problem
Briefly describe those factors that shows there will be no need to work directly with other people as subjects in the gathering of qualitative data
The research will not require any qualitative data. It is however of interest to note that interaction with subjects bother at personal level and online will be necessary in the gathering of data.
Highlight the factors that may dictate a high level of the structure of the stated research
In order to have a fairly accurate research, several measurements will be taken. The analysis of the results or finding will be properly done including use of graphs. The estimation of the cost will then be done(Athreya et al 2016).
Selection of a qualitative an approach
Briefly describe the qualitative data sources that will be needed and cannot be converted into the quantitative
In the research time, the existing power sources will be analyzed and their advantages and short coming will be noted. The project will then seek to address the shortcomings while making improvement on the already existing benefits. This will be pure qualitative data source that will be taken through analysis
What factors indicate that there will be no need of working with other people directly as subjects in the installation of the DC houses?
The information regarding the possible improvement of the solar power will be obtained online thus there will be no need to work with other individuals directly.
Briefly outline those factors that might show low level of the structure of the research
The failure to obtain the exact solutions for the specific problem with the AC applications may make the research a low level one Also the research will involve use of low level or just simple software of engineering.
Considering the answers that have been provided in the above questions, what is likely to be the position of the project methodology?
The topic of research will be exactly quantitative as it will seek to evaluate the performance of the DC houses while checking on the quality of the energy provided in comparison to the AC sources
References
Athreya, V., Odden, M., Linnell, J.D., Krishnaswamy, J. and Karanth, K.U., 2016. A cat among the dogs: leopard Panthera pardus diet in a human-dominated landscape in western Maharashtra, India. Oryx, 50(1), pp.156-162.
Ismail, M.S., Moghavvemi, M. and Mahlia, T.M.I., 2013. Techno-economic analysis of an optimized photovoltaic and diesel generator hybrid power system for remote houses in a tropical climate. Energy Conversion and Management, 69, pp.163-173.
Kakigano, H., Miura, Y. and Ise, T., 2013. Distribution voltage control for DC microgrids using fuzzy control and gain-scheduling technique. IEEE Trans. Power Electron, 28(5), pp.2246-2258.
Marks, M., Chi, K.H., Vahi, V., Pillay, A., Sokana, O., Pavluck, A., Mabey, D.C., Chen, C.Y. and Solomon, A.W., 2014. Haemophilus ducreyi associated with skin ulcers among children, Solomon Islands. Emerging infectious diseases, 20(10), p.1705.
Tanaka, K., Yoza, A., Ogimi, K., Yona, A., Senjyu, T., Funabashi, T. and Kim, C.H., 2012. Optimal operation of DC smart house system by controllable loads based on smart grid topology. Renewable Energy, 39(1), pp.132-139.
Vossos, V., Garbesi, K. and Shen, H., 2014. Energy savings from direct-DC in US residential buildings. Energy and Buildings, 68, pp.223-231.
Werth, A., Kitamura, N. and Tanaka, K., 2015. Conceptual study for open energy systems: distributed energy network using interconnected DC nanogrids. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid, 6(4), pp.1621-1630.
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