Energy recovery of moving vehicles' wakes in highways by vertical axis wind turbines

Abstract

In this study, energy recovery from moving vehicles wake by vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) was investigated. The wind turbine is designed to be located at the highways medians to generate electricity. Transient simulation was performed to evaluate the performance of the VAWT. Various factors were studied such as car velocity, gap distance between the VAWT and car position, and angular velocity of the blades. The results showed that maximum energy output from VAWT is about 107.1 J from the car wake. At 126 km/h average car velocity, the daily energy generation, number of batteries, number of lamps, and daily reduction in CO2 emission were 53.5248 kWh, 38 batteries, 18 lamps (with 60 m spacing between each lamp), and 24.08616 kg, respectively.