Analysis of Energy Harvesting for Self-powered Iot Edge Node Devices Applied in a Biogas Generation Context

The Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem has become a key enabling for the development of intelligent systems. Various IoT hardware components such as sensors, processors, and communication devices require power to operate, and they are often deployed in an electrical power-constrained environment. Therefore, investing in energy harvesting as an alternative power source can improve the efficiency and lifetime of IoT applications. This paper presents the designed IoT sensor node to monitor the biogas production environment and investigates the energy harvesting techniques suitable to power the wireless sensor node (WSN) in deplyoment enviroment. The appropriate power harvesting sub-system capacity was analyzed, and the result shows that the proposed sensor node can be powered by solar panel PV of 15 W, 12 V, 1.25 A directly connected to the output of Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) type charge controller of 12 V, 2 A, the rechargeable battery of 12 V, 12 Ah. Furthermore, in this paper a mathematical model for predicting a solar panel size for a given global solar radiation is developed. According to the model result, the suggested sensor node can be powered by solar panels with sizes ranging from 17.8 to 21.7 cm2. The model was validated for different values, and it is generic to be adopted anywhere. The result of this work can be adopted by decision-makers in the renewable energy sector to achieve precision energy.