BURTONSVILLE, Md. — New Energy Technologies Inc., a next-generation alternative and renewable energy developer, has announced that engineers have completed development of the company's newest MotionPower prototype for generating electricity from the movement of cars and light trucks. The company will now undertake active field tests of the device at a drive-thru located at a prominent Burger King franchise in the New York metropolitan area.
The durability testing of the MotionPower prototype will be conducted at a Hillside, N.J., Burger King outlet owned and operated by Andrew Paterno and Michael Wallstein. Paterno and Wallstein have 12 Burger King restaurants in the New York Metro area.
"It's very exciting to be involved in the early testing and development of a brand new technology designed to generate electricity from the motion of vehicles. More than 150,000 cars drive through our Hillside store alone each year, and I think it would be great to capture the wasted kinetic energy of these hundreds of thousands of cars to generate clean electricity," Paterno said.
New Energy's latest MotionPower prototype is an ultra-low profile, modular device that can be easily customized to varying lengths based on site requirements.
Mother Nature Network reports that the technology takes advantage of a car's weight to generate electricity, apparently by driving over a series of plates that angle up out of the road surface.
Fast Company blogger Clay Dillow said that roadway kinetic energy harvesters have been criticized because the resistance they create hurts gas mileage. However, the MotionPower prototype harvesters circumvent this issue by installing its generators in places where vehicles are slowing anyhow, such as drive-thrus.
For a demonstration of the technology, click here.
