A donkey to generate electricity
An Italian start-up has imagined a device capable of converting mechanical energy produced by the passage of cars on a donkey into electricity. In Europe there would be a market of 21 billion euros for this type of technology.
For the moment this device is not yet developed and would not withstand the continuous passage of vehicles if it were installed on a road. It is expected, however, that if this system were put in place, for example, on a portion of the Milan peripheral ring road, where 400 cars pass every day, it could generate 6 million kWh each year, or 650.000 euros of electricity, and would prevent the emission of 120 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
This donkey, baptized Lybra, ie balance in Latin, measures 12 cm in height, and was developed by a team from the Italian company Underground Power. A single device costs 7.000 euros, but to equip an entire portion of the road comprising a dozen of these speed bumps would require investing around 100.000 euros. This investment would pay off after 6 years.
As Andrea Prisi, from Underground Power, explains, the idea was born from a doctoral project on which he had worked since 2008 at the Politecnico di Milano: "after my diploma, I started a doctorate within a project that aimed to manage the coral reef. The parameters necessary for its study were recorded by buoys powered by solar energy. This not being sufficient, we sought to use the energy produced by the pendulum motion of the buoys due to the waves. We wanted to develop this technology to supply cities with electricity but the company to which we presented our project, Sofina Venture, was not interested. So, we developed another project to create these speed bumps".
"In 2010 we won two business plan competitions organized by the provinces of Trento and Monza, and we thus raised 60.000 euros to finance the project. We were also helped by the Mind the Bridge program".
"We have 6 customers interested in our technology, but we asked them to wait for the pilot test." This test will take place in June at the Milan headquarters of a large multinational company. "We have opened the company to the participation of private investors and we are moving towards new capital of 300.000 euros".
"We plan to build around ten systems by the end of the year, and by 2015 we plan to invest up to 18 million euros. We plan to open an office in London in September, then in the USA in 2014 ".
Although there are "6 other companies in the world, in Israel, the USA, Canada and France", which are developing similar activities, "none are ready for the market yet and none have developed a device that can be put directly on the road and have on the contrary buried systems ". "This system is not designed for the motorway because it would not support such traffic".
Source: http://www.bulletins-electroniques.com/ ... /72416.htm
Let me remain very skeptical ...
In the same family for trains: https://www.econologie.com/forums/recuperati ... 12171.html
I suppose that the figure of 6 million kWh per year corresponds to the power that the generator could provide if it were operated 24 hours a day ...: approximately 24W. 
