Electrical generation from waste energy in running water of household plumbing

Waste energy in running water in a household plumbing system is easy to find daily in faucets, showers, and other appliances. The water just runs for cleaning and becoming wasting substances. The energy of flowing water is valuable to collect and transform to another form of energy such as electricity. In the form of electricity, the energy can be directly used or kept in energy storage. In advance of developing a mini compact turbine-generator (MCTG), the flowing water in every part of the household plumbing is proposed to be collected in the form of electrical power. However, the conventional MCTG generate a lower voltage which is not sufficient for direct use in various electrical appliances and does not match the terminal rated voltage of the battery as electrical storage. The paper proposes improving MCTG to produce a higher voltage by adding the proposed dc-dc step-up converter to overcome the problem. Design and simulation have been made to meet the desired criteria for electric voltage generation. Experimental simulation results have shown promising results to produce 14 volts and 3.25 watts with efficiency above 90%, which means the utilization of these energy sources can be developed.