Motorway operator trials turbine powered by passing lorries
Jan Dodd,
Windpower Monthly,
12 August 2010,
2:44pm
FRANCE: The world's first vehicle-activated wind turbine is undergoing tests beside the A6 motorway just southeast of Paris at Venoy-Grosse-Pierre.
Strong gusts of wind kicked up by lorries thundering along the motorway drive the tiered, scoop-like structures inside the two-meter high vertical axis turbine.
The machine is being developed by motorway operator APPR in partnership with its inventor, Cita Production, a small company mainly producing boilers for the nuclear industry.
If the tests are successful, the plan is to use the turbines for powering surveillance cameras, weather stations, electronic message boards and suchlike alongside motorways in sites where there is no convenient electricity supply.
