Design for a Grid-integrated, Renewable Power Supply for Traffic Control Systems

Traffic lights are signaling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings and other similar locations. They are used to control conflicting traffic flow. Traffic signals are an essential asset especially in the African society with its large population and poor driving ethics. The need for this work stems from the recent instances of power outage widely experienced in the country. Loss of power supply has led to frequent interruption in the operation of traffic control systems dependent on grid power. This project aims to study the severity of the situation and design a reliable supply system that would eliminate these interruptions. The stated aim will be achieved by obtaining and analyzing power supply data from the power holding company supplying the test location and then using the insights from that analysis to design a renewable energy based backup system. For this project, power outages are analyzed using a probability model. The power outage durations which are measured and presented as continuous variables are discretized by grouping them into ranges in a frequency distribution table. Each range is considered as an independent event thereby allowing for the evaluation of their individual probabilities. After the individual probabilities of each outage event is determined, the compound probabilities are calculated. Compound probability is the probability of joint occurrence of 2 or more events. This would provide valuable insight into the state of power supply for the test location to aid in the design of the system proposed in this project, policy making and further research.