Slashdot Mirror
Ramp Creates Power As Cars Pass
Ant wrote to mention a BBC News report on a ramp that generates power via passing cars. From the article: "Dorset inventor Peter Hughes' Electro-Kinetic Road Ramp creates around 10kW of power each time a car drives over its metal plates. More than 200 local authorities had expressed an interest in ordering the £25,000 ramps to power their traffic lights and road signs, Mr Hughes said."
If it was designed well, the maintenance should be negligible. There might also be a benefit in that the lights would stay on in a power outage.
As far as electricity usage goes, I would guess that each bulb might be 200 Watts. Depending on the design of an intersection, there would probably be between 8 and 16 of these lights on constantly. According to http://www.ukpower.co.uk/running-costs-elec.asp the cost per month would be about £130/month, or a bit more than £1500/year. Assuming there is no interest (or increase in the price of electricity) it would take almost 16 years before these savings make up for the cost of the equipment. Many governments make investments on this time-scale anyway. Additionally, if it could be used to power more than one traffic light, it might only take 7 or 8 years to pay for itself.