India’s first small wind generator developed

At a time when farmers of Gujarat are unhappy with the state government for hiking power tariff, what if there comes their way a small windmill that generates electricity of up to 1,800 watts. And that at just Rs 65,000. The department of physics at Sardar Patel University has developed the country's first indigenous Small Wind Generator (SWG). So far, SWGs have only been imported from the US, UK, Sri Lanka and African countries to produce electricity from wind. The indigenous version costs around Rs 65,000, which is not only cheaper than the imported unit that costs much more, but is also cheaper than solar power generators. The SPU device produces 1800 watts (1.8 kilo watt) of electricity.

“A housing colony in Bhuj had installed imported SWGs a few years ago. Despite the prohibitive cost of Rs 12 lakh, the system could not be maintained as most of the technical parts were not available in the country,” says Shreelal Jha, who took the technical training to develop SWG at Slowtrust group in Sri Lanka as part of a SPU project. “The raw material required for developing such SWGs are found in abundance in our country compared to UK and Sri Lanka . Besides, installing them to Indian conditions, where many farmers require electricity for three to four hours, is suitable as this can act as stand-alone system. We are also developing an SWG that can run 5 hp water pumps,” Jha adds.

He was given a grant of Rs 1.5 lakh to develop the SWG, but Shreelal Jha did it for Rs 65,000. The fabrication and installation work was completed in 25 days at the department with locally available material. Interestingly, Jha Shreelal had received the National Award for Invention of Braille Laboratory, which can provide mass-education to the visually impaired. It has three fibreglass blades of five feet length with a waterproof five-phase AC generator mounted on a 20-foot galvanised pipe. The structure includes a tail vane to ensure that the SWG remains in a certain direction when the wind is low. At high winds, it protects the SWG from being damaged by rotating it out of the wind. “Internationally, the lowest wind speed required for charging battery is 10 km an hour, but for our generator the minimum wind speed to start charging is 7.2 kmph. We achieved this breakthrough by adding new concepts in the design of wind power battery charger. "The charging current is 15 ampere at a wind speed of 18 km, a speed normal in coastal areas, hilly regions and desert plains. It can generate 40 ampere at a wind speed of 36 km,” says Shreelal Jha, technical assistant at the department.