Highway Rest Stops May Soon Fuel Themselves

Chicago has long been known as the Windy City. And Illinois is known as the Prairie State. Put those two monikers together and you have a convincing recipe for Illinois being the ideal spot to test out new approaches to harnessing the power of the wind. From Illinois to Kansas, there isn't much in the way that will slow down the wind as it builds its power and drives across the state.

Something else that regularly drives across the state of Illinois is traffic. And with researchers regularly coming up with new ways to design alternative energy sources, surely wind power is a logical consideration for providing energy to Illinois. Patrick Chapman, a University of Illinois professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, worked with Piotr Wiczkowski, one of his graduate students, to look into the use of wind power as an alternative energy source. And the focus of their research may seem surprising, but extremely logical.

The two researchers conducted an extensive study for the Illinois Department of Transportation and the Illinois Center for Transportation to see if it would be feasible to harness energy from the wind to power highway rest areas and truck weigh stations. The idea behind the research was that capturing the wind power could be used to offset costs of electricity to those stations, while also offering a return on the expense of investing money into the wind turbines necessary to do the job.

According to Chapman, the team just got out their maps and collected lots of data from weather stations in the local areas. Then they applied wind generation models they were already familiar with to determine the available resources for wind at the sites they were researching.

The two researchers then gathered all the information they could about wind turbines, then matched that information against the data they had collected, to figure out which turbines they should match up with the various sites. Because of 32 rest stops and 20-plus weigh stations to evaluate, they had a lot of data to go through, and numerous wind turbines to evaluate. They wanted to determine what it would cost to install and maintain the selected wind turbines at the specific sites for 20 years, and then compare that data to the savings in energy that would be generated during the same span of years.

Chapman and Wiczkowski were unable to achieve "grid parity" with their research -finding that the cost of installing and maintaining wind turbines would match the cost of drawing electricity directly from the power grid running beneath the rest areas and weigh stations. However, most groups that install wind turbines and similar renewable energy sources find ways to make the use of such sources cost-efficient by using subsidies and government rebates. Renewable energy is currently not as viable as it may be in the future, but researchers are working toward achieving that goal.

Part of the difficult for Chapman and Wiczkowski was that electricity in Illinois is already pretty inexpensive. Also, rest areas require a great deal of electricity to run lights and vending machines for 24 hours a way. But after factoring in the subsidies and rebates, there were several sites that were promising for generating sufficient wind power. The researchers picked six weigh stations and four highway rest areas that seemed to have favorable conditions for generating wind power, and they installed systems there to track the data and see if the system might be viable on a larger scale in the future.

In addition to generating power for the sites, Chapman noted that installing wind turbines at rest stops could offer the benefit of educating travelers. Although it would be difficult to quantify the benefit of education, having wind turbines in very visible locations such as rest areas would give people firsthand education and a close-up view of how wind turbines work. Chapman feels strongly that putting up informational plaques at the sites would help consumers become more aware of how alternative energy sources can be found anywhere, because millions of people stop at rest areas each year. So in addition to going to the bathroom and grabbing a pack of nabs and a soda, people can pick up a little knowledge as well.