Standing on the roadside, you must have experienced wind blowing against your face even when the weather wasn’t windy. That happens due to the fast running traffic, and the blow is even harder if a bus or a truck crosses by.
Barry Thomson, a businessman from Kent, U.K, thought why these continuous waves of wind go in vain, and hence came up with an idea of using them to produce electricity using traffic powered wind turbines.
The guy has created a cylindrical wind turbine that connects to roadside lamp posts. And this novel source of electricity production is being termed as ‘Untapped energy from moving vehicles.’ The continuous flow of thousands of cars on the road will aid this design of traffic powered wind turbines.
It is an efficient and cost-effective method, but also, its large-scale application will help the UK reach its carbon-neutral status by 2050. Starting, these traffic powered wind turbines will be ably powering the lamp posts on which they are planned to be installed. Later, the energy will be used elsewhere.
Road Side Wind Turbines
Talking about these wind turbines’ size and dimensions from Thomson’s company Alpha 311, each traffic powered wind turbine is 2 meters tall. However, Thomson said that they are working on making it as compact as possible. And the team will soon come with a much more efficient and smaller design.
Each turbine’s cost is approximately $26,000 and is good enough to produce electricity equivalent to 21 square meters of solar panels.
Free Energy From Moving Cars
The running source of these wind turbines is moving traffic; as it is mentioned on Alpha 311’s website, “cars and trucks aren’t going away, so let’s use this energy for local communities, that will lead to a greater benefit to the environment.”
These newer and unconventional energy production methods will sure prove fruitful in the future, given as promising these new designs are. Another such method is undergoing experimentation where many companies are trying to produce electricity from the power of the ocean, pretty interesting!
Alpha 311 design of wind turbines is exceptional in its electricity production; however, that doesn’t end here. The CEO of the company also stated that it comes with great ease of simple and cost-effective installation
Fits With The Existing Infrastructure
Thomson told the Daily Mail that there had been ideas of putting wind turbines on top of lighting columns. People considered remaking lighting columns entirely, but this is a retrofit solution, as it attaches to the existing infrastructure.
The design has been put forward to a UK local authority for its large-scale application. And the technology is expected to be soon tested on motorways. Alongside this, the company has also reached out to some small U.S cities and is in initial talks for its applicability.
We’d be anxious to find out where this technology of traffic powered wind turbines goes in the future. Watch the company’s video below to learn more about this new and efficient method of electricity production
