Creating Electricity with the Slowing Motion of Vehicles

An estimated 250 million registered vehicles drive more than 6 billion miles on America’s roadways, every day: how cool would it be if companies could generate electricity every time one of those vehicles pulled into their parking lot or rolled through their drive-up convenience window?

New Energy Technologies, Inc. a next-generation alternative and renewable energy developer, has created a system that does just that with its MotionPower technology for generating electricity from the motion of slowing cars and light trucks. It recently underwent durability testing at a Burger King in Hillside, New Jersey, throughout the busy Labor Day weekend

It looks just like a flattened speed bump with long levers across the top that press down when tires roll over them. That force turns gears inside, generating 2000 watts of electricity instantaneously, say the engineers who designed it. Watch a demo of it here at www.newenergytechnologiesinc.com

Designed as a roadway-based system for installation where vehicles are already required to decelerate or stop, MotionPower technology assists vehicles in slowing down, and in the process of doing so, captures the slowing vehicles’ motion (kinetic) energy before it is lost as brake heat, and creatively converts that energy into clean, ‘green’ electricity.

As millions of vehicles slow or come to a stop at toll plazas, rest areas, residential traffic slowing areas, drive-thrus, and countless other roadway points, their original motion energy, derived from the burning of fossil fuels, is dissipated into the brakes and lost as heat to the environment. I’m thinking that such systems could be even more functional than those speed humps meant to slow down speeding drivers in residential neighborhoods.

New Energy’s MotionPower devices make use of the lost energy wasted by these millions of cars, trucks, and heavy vehicles when they slow down or come to a full stop countless times throughout the day, and convert this otherwise wasted energy into valuable, clean electricity.

In an article at Fox News,  Engineer Jerry Lynch (who created the prototype) explains that the final version will involve more bumps and more pedals to create more juice than the prototype currently undergoing testing. “If this is multiplied by ten times the length and we have 100,000 or 150,000 cars a year, the device will pay back in less than two years,” Lynch estimates. (Click here to watch the Fox News video with more details on how the Motion Power system works.)

Once fully optimized and installed, engineers anticipate that MotionPower devices could be used to augment or replace conventional electrical supplies for powering roadway signs, street and building lights, storage systems for back-up and emergency power, and other electronics, appliances, and even devices used in homes and businesses.

“We undertook our durability tests during the busy Labor Day long weekend at a high-traffic site that’s typical of our installation target market,” explained Mr. Meetesh Patel, Esq., President and CEO of New Energy Technologies, Inc. “The early data we’ve acquired from these Phase 1 tests of our first prototype for cars and light trucks validates our engineering approach, materials selection strategy, and product deployment plans – all very important factors in developing a commercially successful first-of-its kind technology for generating clean electricity from the motion of vehicles.”

In addition to tests conducted at Burger King, engineers are undertaking additional durability testing of New Energy’s prototyped mechanical MotionPower system for cars and light trucks in the upcoming weeks at the Four Seasons Washington, DC and at the Holiday Inn Express Baltimore.

Tags: Alternate Fuels/Energies, Automotive and Transportation, EcoFriendly Alternatives, Electric, Food, Restaurants