As people struggle to capture the nature’s movement and create electricity from it, a team of scientists found a more easy way of doing that by harvesting human activity energy right from the streets of big cities. Instead of relying on air or water flow, they thought to capture the movement of car traffic in agglomerated intersections.
The University of Illinois at Chicago Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Department announced its collaboration with New Energy Innovations Inc., to create a system that produces green sustainable energy using cars passing by through an intersection.
“The University of Illinois is committed to all methods of green advancement and once completed, we see this clean energy project to be an excellent source for sustainable renewable energy in the future,” says Dr. Michael A. Brown, Ph.D., PE of the University of Illinois.
How does it work?
It’s a pretty simple concept. The companies have designed a system that uses multiple air pumps embedded into the road. They look a bit like speed bumps, but instead resisting the interaction with a car’s tire, they slide down compressing air.
The air is then collected in pressurized tanks and from there it is used to power a turbine that ultimately turns a generator at a steady speed. The energy created can either go into the grid or get stored into backup batteries and used when needed, say in case of a power shortage for making the street lights operational.
Cars are said to be very little affected by the system and they don’t even need to slow down. From inside, you’ll probably feel like when you’re driving over those areas that reunite bridge sections.
Installing them is very easy and a busy intersection can produce enough electricity to power around 40 homes for a whole year. Check the video below to get more details.
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