Renewable energy generation offers opportunities for state agencies, such as the North Carolina Department of Transportation(NCDOT) to reduce costs as well as to reduce their carbon footprint. Additionally, renewable energy provides electrical power forhighway services such as lighting and signage, in areas for which the electrical grid is either unavailable or for whichinterconnection would be complicated and/or expensive.
The Project Team at the North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center (NCCETC) installed anemometers along three heavily travelled corridors in three NCDOT Highway Divisions. These anemometers were intended to simulate the potential for traffic-generated turbulence to produce wind energy. Anemometers were in-place at each site for a period of one-to-two months during which wind speed and direction data were recorded and logged. Utilizing power curves from three prototype Vertical Axis Wind Turbines (VAWTs), potential wind energy generation was modeled by both the VAWT technology provider and by the NCCETC Project Team.
Results indicate that there is considerable potential to generate electricity from traffic-generated turbulence. Current cost of turbulence-generated wind energy was found to exceed equivalent generation of renewable solar energy, though it is believed that larger-scale deployment of VAWT technologywill reduce costs in the future. Based on the results of this study, the proposed next steps in this research includes the possible recommendation for deployment of one or two VAWTs on high traffic corridors in North Carolina to obtain real-time, actual electric generation data which will facilitate a much more-refined technology and economic feasibility assessment of the viability of this mode of renewable energy generation to support highway electrical demands.
