Produce Electricity While You Drive
This can be achieved by using piezoelectric materials under busy roads. The property is aptly known as piezoelectricity and it’s the ability to produce electric power in response to applied mechanical stress, and in this case this stress is the movement of vehicles on the roads. The concept was originally developed by Innowattech and now the company is laying down a sort of test road in Israel. Is it a solution to the global energy and environment crisis? It could very well be.
According to Innowattech (in fact, it should be common knowledge) massive amounts of mechanical energy go waste when millions of vehicles move on the roads. The piezoelectric generators harvest that energy and save them in roadside batteries that can be used by people. This process is also known as Parasitic Energy harvesting.
Under the upper asphalt there is a layer of piezoelectric crystals that produce electricity when squeezed.
According to people at Innowattech the Piezo Electric Generator (IPEG™) should be able to produce 200KWh, while a four-lane highway would produce about 1MWh of electricity, per kilometer, enough to provide power to 2500 households. Considering that Israel has about 250 kilometers of roadways suitable for the technology, in terms of volumes of traffic, and the mass of vehicles taking the roads, you can very well imagine how much electricity can be produced.
The same technology can be implemented on airport runaways and rail systems. The system also has the capacity to deliver real-time data on the weight, frequency and speed of passing vehicles as well as the spacing between vehicles.
Although initially revealed last year, this is a really exciting project and large green energy corporations and environmental organizations are closely monitoring its progress. No infrastructure is required. You don’t need to set up wind farms or solar panels and use up vast areas. You simply have to use the roads that you already have.
“The technology is based on piezoelectric materials that enable the conversion of mechanical energy exerted by the weight of passing vehicles into electrical energy. As far as the drivers are concerned, the road is the same,” according to Dr. Lucy Edery-Azulay, the project manager.
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October 7th, 2009
Sound like perpetual motion to me. The energy generated must come from the motion of the car. This will reduce the efficiency of the car’s propulsion system and result in a an increase in the cars energy usage that will be bigger than the energy generated by the road.
October 7th, 2009
@Gary Plus the units are wrong – kWh are a measure of energy. We would need to know over what period the energy was collected (one day, one week, etc). They probably meant power in kW. See http://www.appropedia.org/Power_and_energy_basics for more.
Some other big questions:
How will this electricity be transported?
How much embodied energy is in the system?
How long will they last?
October 7th, 2009
Gary, it is good that you are skeptical of energy claims, especially from sources that do not seem possible. However, the energy here is coming from gravity – the car is pulled down creating pressure on our roads. This is why heavy trucks destroy our roads quicker than they should deteriorate. Thus, the energy use of the car is unaffected – since the same gravity is acting with and without the piezoelectric material being placed under the road.
October 8th, 2009
Why don’t they do it and then show it? Then they have something.
There are many harebrained schemes coming out today – people are expected to accept them all at face value?
October 8th, 2009
It is a good idea.One must look at the capital cost per MW for the project since the electricity generation will be free. The generated electricity can be used for street lighting.The other use is to charge electric cars moving on the same road by electromagnetic induction.The mix of vehicles on the road now is 99% IC engine and balance electric which will certainly support the charging of electric cars till the mix attains 80:20 proportion.
October 8th, 2009
Sounds like an interesting idea. I would definitely like to see a test on this. Use two sections of road with similar grade and construction and measure fuel use over both. Then also determine output.
Analyze: fuel use vs. output vs. construction cost
But in all, if the roads can be done at a moderate cost (and we all don’t mind the construction delays) and can last for 20 years then this is pretty good idea. Even if you only end up averaging 1 MwH (that is one megawatt sustained for an hour) during the “rush” hours per mile of road this is a pretty good idea.
October 8th, 2009
Be careful of sales hype here. Currently available piezoelectric devices only produce millivolts (around 0.02 volts) per activation, and only for a very short duration (milliseconds). You need to use lots of them to obtain enough power to charge even small batteries. You also need to rebuild roads, which is expensive too. But it does have merit in as far as it does harvest unclaimed energy. Here’s a web address for a good recent paper that discusses unbiased test results:
http://institute.lanl.gov/ei/pdf_files/JIMSS2005.pdf
October 8th, 2009
In effect, this is still just saving some of the energy dissipated by motion which is produced by other means (gas, etc. in the engines). It also needs a lot of energy to set up and maintain the piezo-grid needed, not to mention the energy needed to produce the materials, etc. So, the net effect is suspect, at best.
In any case, this is not an energy generation scheme, just saving, and not very efficiently, at that.
October 8th, 2009
Why can’t we apply the same technique in the railway track? In the case of roads there is no specific line for movement of a vehicle (vehicle can wander), but in the case of rail tracks there is a specific path.
October 8th, 2009
@ ferd,
The article for which you have given the link is very informative.It’s true that the present efficiency of piezoelectric electric materials is very poor to permit a viable commercial application, but so was computers and automobiles when they were introduced.First computers needed large rooms and sacrosanct enclosures.But now its so simple and user friendly as a notebook. Similarly internal combustion engines were very large, noisy and cumbersome initially.
Our roadways are a veritable source of unused energy-both the mechanical load and the radiant solar heat. I’d like to draw you attention to Solar Roadways (www.solarroadways.com) which proposes to harness radiant solar heat on roads by covering the entire roadways with solar panels that can be driven over. Here again the commercial viability for the huge capital investment is not proven yet.
What we need now is a combination of both these concepts (concepts only, not the methods) to tap both the solar and the mechanical energy to produce power, using a single system. That will provide the basis for intelligent roadways of the future which can produce power for its own lighting,electronics and GPS enabled traffic control & warning systems which can communicate with future smart cars.Surplus power if any will be fed into the grid.
All these developments can be called green only when ours cars have become green – fuel cell electric, bio-fuel and/or efficient pneumatic engines. So the R&D for green cars and intelligent roads should go hand in hand to develop a sustainable habitat for our posterity.
October 8th, 2009
I will recommend that the Atlas Monetary International Trust advocates that the NTA require this to be incorporated into highway standards for the pre-2020 guidelines. Excellent idea! I will call our political action committees in DC to suggest this today.
October 8th, 2009
There Is No Such Thing As A Free Lunch. Any electric energy “created” by this technique is actually coming from the gasoline being burned in the cars.
October 8th, 2009
Piezoelectric is a really inefficient form of electricity, but so long as we can create the chips using less energy that that which we gain, then I’m all for it.
October 8th, 2009
But isn’t the “gasoline” being burned anyway?? The only way this would be a bad thing is if it casued extra to be burned.
October 8th, 2009
Well, if all major highways had this stuff underneath we could power tonnes of electric cars so it kills two birds with one stone (ideally, I have no idea what the technology actually can or can’t do).
October 8th, 2009
This idea would only conserve energy iff the vehicles had no suspension and had solid wheels and the road surface provides the means to smoothen the ride and convert the excess movement into electricity.
Otherwise, it will increase fuel consumption by the vehicles and everything would still be lossy.
October 8th, 2009
This WILL save energy. The cars are already being driven. We simply aren’t capturing the energy that we could be capturing. Adding piezoelectric crystals to the road surface will not cause the cars to burn more gasoline, so there will be a net gain.
At first, I thought this was like the test in California 20+ years ago. They put in a stretch of road that was electrified, so electric cars could move into the proper lane, slow down, and lower contacts that would conduct the electricity up to their batteries to recharge them. This was supposed to help with making electric vehicles able to drive further in between charges. The road looked like a big slot-car track, and worked under the same principle.
October 8th, 2009
Proud to be an israeli: “The concept was originally developed by Innowattech and now the company is laying down a sort of test road in Israel”
October 8th, 2009
I saw this technology and was amazed! I had been thinking there needed to be a similar solution, and was pleased to see somebody has found it!
October 8th, 2009
From what I understand the compression that is placed on the piezoelectric material is no greater than would have been exerted on the pavement without it. This means that additional force was not required over the distance which means the work was the same and therefore the energy expended by the car ( train,plane or pedestrian).
Explained this way the first 2 laws of thermodynamics are obeyed and the energy is of a recovered nature.
Just my 2 cents worth..
October 8th, 2009
Gordon is right. If some of the energy going into deforming the pavement which was previously released as heat is converted to electricity then there is some recovery. How much energy is available however compared to the energy cost of installing the piezoelectric material and the supporting grid?
October 8th, 2009
Wow, the application of this technology can reduce emissi CO2. Could this technology competitive with other renewable energies such as solar, wind, wave, etc.?
October 8th, 2009
Technically do-able, but nobody mentions what it costs to resurface hundreds of miles of roads with piezo electronics and the wiring to bring the electricity someplace useful. Could be the most expensive form of energy recovery yet.
October 8th, 2009
I agree w/the expensive part… we’re in no shape to pursue anything too far out there. Can’t even fill all the potholes in MI!
October 8th, 2009
I would prefer to wait till we come up with solar cells that are either clear or can be painted on. I know that we’re probably 30-40 years before the tech gets that good, but once it happens, solar cells could literally be painted onto existing structures in order to power them. Combined with new lithium nanocell battery backups and wind power, we would be good to go.
October 8th, 2009
Wouldn’t it be simpler to have the turning of the wheels create (or transform) electric energy and connected to the battery to recharge it. I can’t understand why electric cars don’t incorporate this or a version of it.
October 9th, 2009
Amazing how a very much obvious scam can resurface over and over again! Gary is absolutely right – more energy can actually be saved by making roads sturdier, thus reducing fuel wastage. The piezoroad is an equivalent of a billion tiny steps ladder cars have to climb instead of just moving forward.
October 9th, 2009
Improved roads, traffic flow patterns and timing of traffic would no doubt be far easier, cheaper and accomplish more.
Improved roads/traffic is not as sexy though and hard to get VC’s interested and the big bucks wouldn’t go to the inventors pocket.
October 10th, 2009
So many have though of similar “free” energy. Just build a windmill for crying out loud!
To save such amounts of energy, they could invest the same money to make road surfaces easier to roll over for a car. A more high-tech tire also helps. It all costs, though.
Yet another idea: place turntable boards along highways, which re-direct the wind to create tailwind, each direction. See how much that saves. Yet, you will STILL save more by just placing as many windmills along the highway as will fit. While you’re at it, build a roof over the highway, stuffed with solar panels. Those may actually manage to collect enough to power some or all of the passing electric cars on sunny days, so they don’t need their own solar setup. Wireless transmission of electricity also exists now. And hey, no sun on the cars, so less aircon power used.
This piezoelectric is either a disturbed mind’s work, or a evil one’s, trying to divert attention and funding away from projects that DO CUT EMISSIONS.
Google : “GEET” and “HHO on demand”.
October 10th, 2009
How do we make roads stiffer? Think of them like a metal – generally the stiffer they are the more brittle they get. There is a limit to how stiff you can make a road surface that is on top of flexible ground without it breaking up.
I suppose the question is what is more feasible? Stiffening up the roads or harvesting the energy generated by the flex?
However this technology can also be used for applications where flex and vibration can’t be avoided so is worth researching.
October 10th, 2009
As long as they don’t soften the road surface to get higher electricity gains. Ideally they would work on firming up the road surface so there is no movement, this would result in better fuel economy in the vehicles.
October 11th, 2009
The energy harvested will cause the passing cars to use more fuel. You are not getting energy for free. This method is like putting a windmill on top of a car to generate power, then using that power to drive an electric motor that moves the car. Sounds good until you realize that the windmill puts increased drag on the car. You can’t get something for nothing.
October 12th, 2009
Why not put the devices in our car tires, thereby allowing us to drive without fuel, just using gravity? The answer is, because gravity is not supplying energy. Force, power, and energy are related, yet very different. Getting the units right should be the first priority of editing here.
I think such devices may have some value on off ramps and before stop signs. In such locations, making the roads softer may actually be of some benefit, as it would slow the car. But then, instead of 250 km or useful roadway, we would be down to probably 1 km of useful roadway in Israel.
October 12th, 2009
@Lonny
Don’t mean to be pedantic but kWh actually stands for kilo watt hours which is a measurement of power over time. Power on it’s own is measure in Watts, thousands of them in kilo-Watts. Energy is measured in Joules or Calories, depending on your country’s standard.
October 12th, 2009
It would work in road sections where cars need to slow down anyway – similar to hybrids that generate energy in deceleration. Like a windmill on your car that pops up whenever you hit the brakes.
October 13th, 2009
Glenn,
You are mistaken when you claim that the energy comes from gravity. Any energy transferred to such a system comes from the car’s movement, and that movement is created by the car’s fuel. The car must become less efficient as energy transfers to the road.
October 14th, 2009
WiseEnergy, I beg to differ. The force of the cars drive train is horizontal to move the car forward. The piezo device turns vertical movement into electricity. The only vertical force here is gravity. Those that think the device would create resistance for the car to overcome need to consider that a pebble on the road is drastically more resistant than the piezo device under the road.
October 31st, 2009
Need to know: The effect on these due to weather pressures, ice, expansion and crunch tolerance. Cost for all installation and future repairs. Rarity of materials in the all ascpect of the process forming the product. Establishing a competitive product climate to solidify pricing.
There should be a 2 kilometer slab for demonstration and pricing before anything is spread and dispensed and sold both mentally and physically.
October 31st, 2009
@slaps If they did as you said and use it as resistance mechanism it will bring down the efficiency of common hybrids which gain by slowing themselve in such situations. Making it less of a pure gain and more of a partial.
January 6th, 2010
It amazes me that so many people feel qualified to comment on something they themselves know nothing about. This experiment may or may not succeed — it is still an experiment and has just entered the pilot stage.
The people behind it are all Ph.Ds in material science, physics etc. from some of the best universities in the world and are senior research scientists at the Technion and specialize in various aspects of Piezoelectric technology.
The pilot itself was approved by Israel’s chief scientist as well as other scientific factors who examined the data and thought it had merit.
It may yet prove to have no merit — but these offhanded know-it-all comments are beyond belief. Lets wait and see what the EROEI (energy return on energy invested) is in regards to the financial ROI and then we shall see.
January 20th, 2010
Awesome idea to use one of the biggest consumers of energy to help off set some of it’s energy. Just starting to learn alternative energy can lessen the over all impact of our consumption of natural resources. Wondering if any other way to use cars to generate energy are in the making would like to know more about the out put of energy that can be made and how can it be harness to be used.