Road power generation - a new type of low carbon and environmental protection power generation

With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization,  China's energy demand has been increasing. China mined 3.68 billion tons of coal in 2015, according to the China National Coal Association. Affected by the lack of domestic resource security and global energy  security, China is faced with a huge challenge of less per capita resources and large energy consumption.

Energy is a concern

Energy issues not only appear in the domestic, since entering the 21st century, in the international scope,  the environmental problems and climate change brought by fossil fuel power generation have begun to arouse people's  attention,  the reduction of fossil fuel reserves has triggered people's thinking about how to deal with a series of problems and  challenges brought by energy issues. The development of new energy and green energy has become an important way for  people to solve energy problems. Among them, "road power generation", as a new type of power generation,  provides a new way to solve the energy problem.

"Kinetic energy" to "electric energy"

There are two main ways to use roads to generate electricity:  one is to use piezoelectric technology. This technology is based on the principle that the car is forced to slow down  due to friction when it passes through the speed bump,  the piezoelectric sensor is laid in the vibration reduction layer of the road,  the vibration energy generated by the vehicle is collected,  and it is converted into electrical energy that can be used and stored through the electric device.

A company affiliated with the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology studied this form of road power generation,  which converts kinetic energy generated by a car in motion into electricity. The method is to implant a large number of  piezoelectric crystals in the asphalt of ordinary pavement,  and generate electricity from the energy generated by the car as it passes by. It is estimated that through this method  of power generation, a kilometer of road surface can produce about 100-400 kilowatts of electricity.

Solar Road

The other way is to use photoelectric technology, through solar power generation.

Based on this approach,  an American green energy company called Solar Way plans to develop solar roads. They plan to lay the developed solar  panels on urban roads, sidewalks, or suburban highways,  and then lay high-strength polymer transparent plastic panels on the solar panels. These roads are also equipped with  light-emitting diodes,  which form road signs that light up on cloudy days or at night. There are also some electric heating wires in the road,  and when the weather is freezing, they can use solar energy to heat the road,  effectively preventing the road from freezing or snow.

Important value

Compared with traditional power generation methods, road power generation makes full use of road resources,  alleviating energy problems at the same time, neither affecting the normal driving of the car,  nor additional energy consumption, but also will not cause pollution,  in line with the new concept of low-carbon environmental protection.

1. Make full use of road resources

In recent years, with the rapid development of highway construction in our country,  the rational utilization of road resources is becoming more and more important. By the end of 2015,  China had 4.57 million kilometers of roads open to traffic, Yang Chuantang, minister of transport, said at a national conference on road maintenance on June 16, Xinhua reported. Nowadays,  with the birth of a variety of road power generation systems,  the way to use the energy on the road to generate electricity, make full use of the "idle" energy on the road,  will greatly reduce the waste of resources, so that the road plays a greater role.

2. Reduce road power consumption

In order to ensure traffic safety, highways, urban roads, highway tunnels, etc., need a lot of street lighting,  and its power consumption is amazing. The research and development and application of road power generation system not  only enables cars and pedestrians to pass normally on the road, but also guarantees road electricity,  such as street lights, signal lights, signs, etc.,  greatly reducing the electricity consumption on the road. At the same time,  the application of clean energy has also replaced the non-renewable resources required for power generation such as coal  to a certain extent.

As a new type of power generation technology,  road power generation has not yet entered the stage of large-scale promotion and utilization. But there is no doubt that  this low-carbon and environmentally friendly power generation method has successfully provided a new idea for the  solution of energy problems, and in the long run, it will also produce huge economic benefits.