Speed Bumps as Energy Generators
By Karina | February 9, 2009
I was carpooling home from an undergraduate alumni meeting last week with my old transportation professor and mentor (and author, public speaker, and good friend, by the way), and somehow I let it slip that I love roundabouts - now, for many transportation engineers I think this may be hearsay. Roundabouts are hard for many motorists to understand, and with an uneducated populace they have the tendency to create traffic snarls. However, they are awfully efficient (unlike the highly disputed left turn vs. jughandle argument) and have the added benefit of calming traffic to make it more safe for everyone. I may have geeked out a little and confessed to him that I’m also a fan of chicanes, another form of traffic calming that is also (ironically) used in Formula 1 and other road-style race tracks. This is all to remind you that I’m pretty dorky about transportation and urban planning, and because I drive a lot, I think about the roads that I’m on and how well they work.
Anyway, in a very timely fashion I stumbled across an article yesterday about speed bumps, and how they are being used in parts of the UK to generate electricity. I know - it sounds counter-productive! after all, you have to slow down before the bump and then accelerate afterwards (at least, you should - I generally careen over the top of them as if my Insight were a fully suspended 4WD). And the braking and sudden acceleration is not the most efficient way to drive!
But the speed bumps under evaluation in London are pretty darn cool. They actually use the force of the vehicles passing over the bump to generate electricity. It’s explained as follows:
As the traffic passes over it, the panels go up and down, setting a cog in motion under the road. This then turns a motor, which produces mechanical energy. A steady stream of traffic passing over the bump can generate 10-36kW of power.
The bumps can each produce between £1 and £3.60 of energy an hour for up to 16 hours a day, or between £5,840 and £21,024 a year. Energy not used immediately can be stored or fed into the national grid.
Isn’t that amazing? I think this would work really well on every road, even those that may not particularly need a traffic calming device. Plus I would much rather go over speed bumps if I knew that some good was coming from them, and the article points out that they can be installed in roads so drivers don’t even notice it as they go by.
Now, regardless of how neat they are - if you look at the benefit cost analysis of installation of one of these, it’s not a cut-and-dry installation argument. They cost between £20,000 and £55,000 to install, compared to a conventional speed bump cost of £2,000. Under best case scenarios (on the busiest streets and at the cheapest installation cost) the generator speed bump will take about 1 year to pay back. However, it could take up to 11 years to break even, and that doesn’t even include the on-going maintenance cost. And speaking of maintenance, these bumps have been under evaluation in London where (except for recently!) there isn’t much snow. I’m not sure how our tough north-east American winters would effect the bumps longevity.
But the bumps are so attractively effective!
“With a steady flow of traffic, four of the ramps used as speed bumps would be enough to power all the street lights, traffic lights and road signs for a mile-long stretch of street. The ramp is silent, comfortable and safe for vehicles. It is not only green energy; it is free energy, once you have paid for the capital cost of the equipment,” said Hughes. “The full potential of this is absolutely enormous.” Hughes claims that 10 ramps could generate the same power as one wind turbine.
The article also teases with a mention of a dance club in Rotterdam that generates electricity by the force of the dancers bouncing around - I thought that was pretty neat too, so here’s a link to more information as a friendly Tiny Choices FYI.
What do you think - would an energy generating speed bump be less annoying? How effective do you think they are, and should we go crazy and install them on all of our busy roads?
[[Photo of Norwegian speed bump warning sign from flickr user Boulanger.IE via creative commons license.]]
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Topics: Transportation |
You know, it wouldn’t hurt to install one in areas that can afford it and definitely have a lot of traffic. Like, say, Georgetown!
I foresee people being resistant to the idea of expensive road bumps, but man, if we could just start them in a few places then after each bump starts paying itself off, more will follow suit. I feel like there should be some way to establish a pool (I don’t know how government spending works, clearly) to ensure that even in an economic crisis we can make technological advances that are good for the country (in my case, the USA) and the world.
Well, if this technology could be installed even without the speed bumps… then what’s the holdup? If a speedbump is needed then it can be installed, and if not then we can capture energy even without slowing folks down.
I’ve read about that energy-generating dance floor before and thought, well if we can harness that power there must be bigger applications for this kind of thing…
PS– love the pic! Good choice.
I’ve read about that energy-generating dance floor before and thought, well if we can harness that power there must be bigger applications for this kind of thing…
Yeah! Good point. Or also: in any situation where people are running the same kinds of businesses (like a block full of restaurants) and appliances and things, why aren’t more people joining forces in general to harvest energy?
complete side track…i like how the name in the photo includes “farts” which is certainly apt to happen if you don’t slow down enough and speed over the speed bump. it can certainly beat them out. be careful karina.
is it wrong that I thought of you when I found that photo?
I know this proof positive that I have failed to mature over the years, but I laughed out loud at that sign. and an energy-generating speed bump is a brilliant idea! Thanks for the post!
Very interesting article! But a small question…when you wrote “…I think this may be hearsay” did you mean “heresy”?
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