Essential Assessment of Last‐Decade Progress in Road Energy Harvesting Systems

Abstract

An important contemporary challenge regarding sustainable development is the analysis of the possibilities of obtaining and recovering energy, also from unconventional areas. One such issue harvests energy from roads. This idea seems to be so attractive that numerous scientific teams around the world conduct research in this area. The author's systematic analysis of review articles from the last decade raises the question, whether harvesting energy from roads is really as attractive and promising as many researchers predict in their publications. The author hypothesizes that in last decade basically no significant progress has been made in the development and improvement of energy harvesting from roads methods and systems. In many cases, the solutions presented are more technical than scientific novelties. Known solutions are modeled and tested again and again, the systems are complex and expensive, and the energy and economic efficiency is relatively low. In this article, the author focuses on critically revealing the flaws, shortcomings, weaknesses, and erroneous assumptions of large part studies conducted in this field. Based on the criticism, it is aimed to indicate prospective directions of development and encourage researchers to look for innovative, effective solutions in the field of energy harvesting from roads.