Power conversion for environment friendly electrically assisted rickshaw using photovoltaic technology in Bangladesh

Addressing the problem of high energy consumption from national grid of electrically assisted rickshaw the Control and Applications Research Centre (CARC), BRAC University has proposed a field tested green solution: provide a share of the required energy of these rickshaws using solar energy. A 360Wp PV array was installed on a rickshaw and the performance was evaluated to determine its impact on the rickshaw and the energy saved from the national grid. The paper presents the findings from the field tests. It is seen that 50% of the required load energy can be provided by the PV array, consequently saving that energy from the national grid. It is further seen that for the same amount of energy consumed from the battery, the distance coverage of these rickshaws can nearly be doubled.