Outside the box… 3 innovative ways to generate renewable energy

Out of the box… 3 innovative ways to generate renewable energy

Humans have become more in need of renewable energy after expanding their industrial activities, in addition to the high rates of urban growth. Accordingly, the world calls for enhancing innovation in the field of energy, by exploiting renewable sources around us such as solar energy, or by thinking about transforming human and vehicle movement into sources that pump clean energy and electricity into all sectors.

Therefore,Earth Guardsin this article explores the most prominent promising technologies and innovations in the field of energy, and to explain how such technologies contribute to reshaping sustainable cities and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in a comprehensive and fair manner. So keep reading.

Steps on the path to renewable energy

One of the most promising innovations that can produce clean electricity is the use of roads that exist almost everywhere around the world, totaling approximately 16 million kilometers. Since these long distances of roads are exposed – daily – to sunlight and human movement as they move and walk, as well as vehicles of all kinds; It can be used to generate renewable energy. So we can keep the planet healthy.

With the rapid technological progress, a new vision has emerged that aims to exploit these movement characteristics of humans and vehicles to transform roads into sources of clean electricity, without this requiring the allocation of additional land, or making radical changes in the infrastructure.

This trend represents a revolutionary step in activating static infrastructure, as it is a sustainable source, which represents a qualitative shift in how to meet increasing energy needs while preserving the environment at the same time. This generated electricity can be used directly to operate street lighting or traffic signals, and it can also be stored in batteries for later use, or entered into the public electricity network.

Multiple technologies for generating electricity from roads

Energy generation from heat

Asphalt roads have a high ability to absorb heat, which makes them an ideal environment to benefit from this property in generating energy, as the heat from the sun that the roads absorb during the day can become a source of electricity, and from here the Thermoelectric Generator technology appeared, which relies on converting the thermal contrast between the road surface and its lower layers into electrical energy.

Actual experiments have begun to take advantage of this technology in the southwestern United States, especially in rural areas, to operate lights and remote sensors. This step is likely to constitute a qualitative leap in the exploitation of thermal energy in public infrastructure.

Converting vehicle vibrations into clean electricity

In addition to the above, another innovative technology known as piezoelectricity (Piezoelectricity) has emerged, which relies on converting vibrations resulting from passing vehicles into electrical energy, using sensitive crystals planted under the asphalt layer, where they respond to pressure; It produces clean energy.

This idea first appeared in the nineteenth century at the hands of the brothers Pierre and Jacques Curie, but its practical applications did not begin until recent decades. In California, for example, the US government invested more than $2.3 million to study the feasibility of implanting piezoelectric crystals in roads.

Covering roads with solar cells

Among the promising future technologies, the idea of covering roads with photovoltaic solar cells (PV, an abbreviation of the words “photo” which in Greek means light, and “Volta” after the Italian physicist “Alessandro Volta,” inventor of the chemical battery in 1800) stands out.

With these advanced solar cells, we can convert sunlight into electrical energy that is used directly in infrastructure operations. This is a technology that has already been applied in some regions around the world, as the American company “Solar Roadways” has developed smart solar panels equipped with microprocessors and “LED” lights for signs and markings. This ensures the continued operation of roads safely, efficiently and sustainably.

In France, the company “Wattway” launched a pilot project using the same idea, where photovoltaic solar panels were installed at toll gates on highways. In order to supply propulsion systems directly with renewable energy.

Challenges and Opportunities

Despite these ambitious applications, there is still a long way to go, due to the cost of the systems required for such technologies, in addition to another challenge represented in maintaining the cells grown under the road, as well as the limited information available to people and governments due to the monopoly of research data by private companies, which reduces the opportunities for transparency and open scientific cooperation.

However, these challenges do not close the broad horizons that these innovations open up; It is not limited to providing technical solutions only, but rather involves a broader vision that reconsiders the human relationship with the infrastructure around him, and restores the balance between the environment and urban development, in accordance with Goal (7) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), “clean and affordable energy.”

These innovations also pave the way for an integrated model of smart cities, in which renewable energy innovations are integrated into the smallest details of daily life, from traffic lights to road lighting, and all of this is a practical application of Goal (11) of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which calls for building more sustainable local communities and cities.

Because of the above,Earth Guards believes that achieving a sustainable future begins with paying attention to the details of our daily lives, and to the infrastructure that we may see as traditional and undevelopable; Roads that we used to view as transportation paths only can be transformed into vital arteries that pump clean energy into the veins of cities. In support of sustainable development and its goals.