Abstract
Over the last three decades, transportation has become one of the main energy-consuming sectors around the world and, as a result, large amounts of emissions are produced, contributing to global warming, climate change, and health problems. Therefore, huge investments and efforts have been made by governments and international institutions to find new renewable and clean sources of energy. As a contribution to these efforts, this study determined the practical energy and environmental implications of replacing conventional speed humps with energy-harvesting speed humps in Nablus city, Palestine. The study was implemented using an energy-harvesting speed hump (EHSH) system developed in the laboratories at An-Najah National University and based on comprehensive traffic volume counts at all speed humps’ locations. In addition, a traffic volume prediction model was developed in order to determine the implications over the next 10 years. As a result of the study, the expected annual amount of generated energy was determined. Moreover, the expected reduction in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and the reduction in the cost of roadway network lighting were determined based on the current and future traffic conditions.
Highlights
This study investigated the use of energy-harvesting speed humps (EHSHs) in Nablus city in order to produce the electrical power that could be used in roadway network lighting
This study focused on the practical implementation of EHSHs under real traffic conditions rather than testing these techniques in a laboratory in order to determine the feasibility of the implementation of these techniques in urban areas and quantify the environmental and economic implications
Despite the fact that several EHSH models have been introduced over the past two decades, these models were prototypes that were tested in laboratories in order to determine the amount of energy that could be generated from these models without determining the feasibility of implementing these models under real traffic conditions
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. New renewable sources of energy have been investigated recently in order to reduce the fuel consumed by vehicles and the electric power required to operate the transportation facilities and light the roadway networks. Over the last three decades, several techniques have been developed in order to transform the kinetic energy of vehicles that move over speed humps to electric power that can be used to light roadways. These kinetic energy harvesting systems can be classified into three categories based on their working principles: (1) piezoelectric, (2) mechanical, and (3) electromagnetic.
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