Promising tests for MotionPower system to generate electricity from traffic

Apparently, the ongoing testing of the MotionPower system for generating electricity from the movement of cars and light trucks – as reported here previously – is paying dividends. New Energy, the company developing the technology, reports it can produce a 25-fold increase in the system’s capacity to capture kinetic energy from moving vehicles, bringing the commercialization of the MotionPower system another step closer to reality.

In addition to the increased energy output, the next generation MotionPower prototype also includes several advances to increase the durability of the system, as well as lower its maintenance costs. These latest refinements maximize the amount of electricity generated without disrupting the driver or vehicle or robbing a vehicle of the energy it needs to accelerate. This is because the system is designed to be installed in locations where vehicles are required to reduce speed, such as toll plazas, rest areas and drive-thrus, meaning the system only makes use of vehicle energy that would be required to slow down.

Key to the anticipated 25-fold increase in capacity over the original prototype are design enhancements to an energy buffer and storage device inside the system.

Read more . . .

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Tags: design enhancements, energy output, generating electricity, kinetic energy, MotionPower, new energy, next generation, storage device

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 9:46 am and is filed under Innovation, Project Energy, gizmag. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.