Drawing Electricity from Roads

December 15, 2009

According to Haim Abramovich, CEO of Innowattech, the road version of the system—on a kilometer (0.62 miles) of a single highway lane that serves heavy trucks—could conceivably be able to produce enough electricity to power around 200 homes.

While other companies in Japan and the United States have explored similar concepts for things other than roads, Abramovich said the Innowattech one is the first road-based system. A similar US-based technology actually increases the cars’ gas usage, but Innowattech’s more efficient system uses mechanical energy sent into the road by cars. Said Abramovich, “A majority of the energy being used by the engine of the car is…wasted, so we take this energy and transform only part of it back into useful energy.” For more information on this and other applications for railways, airports, and pedestrian traffic: Yael Greenberg, +972-3-600-2525, http://www.innowattech.co.il/.