Potentiality of small wind turbines along highway in Malaysia
Awadh Ali Al-Aqel, Lim Boon Kian, Yap Tze Chuen, and Ervina Efzan Mohd Noor
Abstract— Vehicle-induced turbulent airflow by the traffic in
the highways is one of the sources of wind energy which can be
harvested to supply the power to the highway lighting and
telecommunication signaling. This work focuses on the
assessment of potentiality of implementing small scale wind
turbines along the highways in Malaysia. The study was started
by conducting wind speed measurements adjacent to the
highway at Lebuh SPA (Sungai Udang - Paya Rumput - Ayer
Keroh Highway), a major highway in Malacca state, Malaysia.
Three positional parameters have been investigated for suitable
placement of the wind turbines. They are: the lateral distances
from the road shoulder, the heights from the ground, and the
orientation of the wind turbines relatives to the road. The
former two parameters were set at 0.5 m, 1.0 m and 1.5 m for
each position; while the latter was varied at perpendicular, 45°,
and parallel to the road. The measurements were conducted
using hot-wire anemometers. The results showed that the
optimum positions for the wind turbine is at 1.0 m from the
lateral distance and the height above the ground, respectively,
and the optimum orientation is found to be 45° from the road
at which the horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) can be
directed. The large size vehicles such as lorries and busses were
observed to produce higher wind speed as compared to the
smaller ones. The results were further verified by using
numerical simulation work through ANSYS Fluent.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the consumption of energy around the
world increased rapidly due to three main factors; increasing
population, urbanization and rising living standards [1].
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), around
two thirds of global 𝐶𝑂2 emission in 2013 was produced to
generate electricity and heat mainly from fossil fuel resources
[2]. Renewable Energy provided 19% of global energy
consumption in 2012, nuclear provide 2.6% and fossil fuels
still at the top of the energy resources by 78.4% [3]. Wind
power can be used to avoid fuel cost [4]. Recent years have
witnessed an increased in total global wind power capacity in
some parts of the world to reach in Europe as an example to
above 318 GW in 2013 [3]. Wind industry witnessed a high
record for the installation of new 51 GW in 2014 comparing
with only 35.6 GW in 2013 [5]. Generating of electricity
using wind turbines is affected by wind direction, wind force
and the availability of sufficient wind through the year [6].
*Research supported by the Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE),
under the allocation of Exploratory Research Grant Scheme (ERGS) (grant
no.: ERGS/1/2013/TK07/MMU/02/02, MMUE/130133).
Awadh Ali Al-Aqel, Lim Boon Kian, and Ervina Efzan Mohd Noor are
with Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Multimedia University,
Melaka, Malaysia (e-mail: awadhali08@gmail.com;bklim@mmu.edu.my;
ervina.noor@mmu.edu.my).
Yap Tze Chuen is with School of Engineering and Physical Sciences,
Heriot-Watt University Malaysia, Malaysia (e-mail: t.yap@hw.ac.uk).
II. WIND TURBINE AND IT’S SCALE
The use of wind energy was begun in ancient time. The
first use of wind energy reported by historians was in 1,700
B.C. when Hammurabi used windmill to irrigate plains in
East [7]. Although all types of windmills were vertical-axis,
starting from the twelfth century, Horizontal-axis wind mills
were found in Europe to achieve variety tasks [8]. Wind
turbine takes two processes to generate electricity. The first
process is to convert the kinetic energy of the wind into a
mechanical energy using the rotor of the wind turbine. The
second process is to convert the mechanical energy from the
first process to electrical energy through a generator [9][10].
The conversion of wind energy to mechanical energy is based
on the fundamentals of conservation of mass, energy and
momentum [11].
There is still no globally agreement was reached for
unified definition for the small and large scale wind turbine.
Small wind turbine (SWT) was defined based on the amount
of electricity which produces to cover various household
electricity demands. In universal level the consumption of by
a household varies from place to place. For example, in
average American house would need 10 kW turbine to cover
its full consumption, a European household demands a 4 kW
turbine and average Chinese household requires 1 kW
turbine. In this paper an emphasize on the small wind turbine
definition which is according to International
Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) a turbine with a rotor
swept area of less than 200 m2, equating to a rated power of
approximately 50 kW generating at a voltage below 1,000 V
AC or 1,500 V DC. SWT in several countries have their own
definition [12]. SWT can be categorized into vertical axis
wind turbine (VAWT) and horizontal axis wind turbine
(HAWT) based on the axis of rotation. SAWT can also be
categorized based on the type of the forces that causes the
rotation either drag or lift [13]. Energy cost and the need of
carbon emissions reduction have led to an increase of SWT
use in the last years [14].
The market of the SWT is growing year by year to reach a
cumulative total of about 870,000 units which were installed
around the world in 2013. The number of installed units is
8% more than the SWT units that were installed in 2012
which were 806,000 units. China, the United States and the
United Kingdom have the largest market in small wind
turbine in terms of installed unit. The number of the small
wind turbines in some large markets such as India and Italy
was not registered. So that World Wind Energy Association
(WWEA) estimated the total number of the installed SWT to
reach more than one million units [12].
The application of the SWTs in market can categorized
into two categories either off-grid or on-grid. In off-grid
category, SWTs are used to charge a battery which is the way
where most of the SWTs applications use today. In the on-
grid type, SWTs are used to be connected to the grid [15].
III. WIND ENERGY IN MALAYSIA
The use of renewable energy in Malaysia concentrates on
the producing of electricity and the use for transportation
sector. The new scenario is to double the use of renewable
energy from 12 terawatt-hours to about 40 TWh between
2013 and 2040 [17].
To help in accelerating the growth of renewable energy,
the mechanism of feet-in tariff (FiT) was implemented. In
Malaysia Eleventh plan (2016-2020), more researches and
studies need to explore new resources of renewable energy to
have more diverse energy generating mix. The new
renewable sources include wind energy, geothermal and the
energy from ocean. The process of wind mapping across
Malaysia estimated to be achieved by 2016. This national
wind mapping will help in the studies of wind energy
feasibility to be improved [18]. Assessment of potentiality of
onshore wind energy is ongoing currently by Malaysian
government to decide if it is possible to include wind energy
in FiT mechanism with other renewable energy resources.
The two unsuccessful wind energy projects in Small
Perhentian island and in Swallow reef showed that it is hard
to go directly and install wind turbines in Malaysia without
sufficiently comprehensive studies [19].
According to the global average of the wind speed at a
level of 80 m/s above the ground Malaysia has low average
wind speed with some other countries such as Congo,
Indonesia Gabon and wide area in Brazil [20]. The average
annual speed of the wind in Malaysia is 1.8 m/s at a level of
2.0 m height from the ground [21].
IV. SMALL WIND TURBINES ALONG HIGHWAYS
When a person stands near a road, he will feel the wind
pressure created by passing vehicles the wind pressure differs
with different vehicles size, speed and mass. This generated
wind caused a drag force which is the force produced when a
body moves in fluid medium [23]. The turbulence due to the
moving vehicles on the roadways called vehicle-induced
turbulence (VIT). A field measurement of the turbulent
kinetic energy (TKE) showed that the large size vehicles
produce the highest TKE comparing with the smaller vehicles
and the more the traffic result higher TKE [24]. There are
another two mechanisms by which the turbulence is produced
in addition the VIT in the roadways, the first mechanism is
occur due to the structure of the road and called structural
road-induced turbulence (S-RIT).The second mechanism is
due the temperature difference between the roadway and the
surrounding areas and called thermal road-induced turbulence
(T-RIT) [25].VIT is the most significant mechanism to
produce turbulence on the roadways among the mentioned
mechanisms [26].
Small wind turbines could be used to generate electricity
along highways by capturing the wind turbulence induced by
moving vehicles. The electricity will be used as free power to
light the street lamps or to be used in other services near the
highways. This idea is not entirely new but still needs more
efforts to apply it along the highways.
There have been few attempts to get energy from the wind
induced by moving vehicle on highways were done by
individuals and groups. However, there is still no complete
process has been achieved successfully to implement the
idea.
The idea of using small wind turbines in highways was
found in literature. Some of the reported studies showed the
possibility of implementation of this idea and its advantages
that will come out when implementation of this idea is
achieved to get a clean energy for various applications from
the unused wind energy along the roadways [27],[28]. The
idea to generate electricity in highways can be performed by
placing a vertical axis wind turbine (VAWT) on the divider
of the highway to receive the wind from two sides and the
speed of the wind will be more than at one side of the road.
The generated electrical energy will be stored in batteries to
light the highway at night. The design and selection of the
blades of the wind turbine play a significant role in the
efficiency of the wind turbine in addition to a consideration
of some other factors such as the speed of the wind, length
and shape of the blade, height and design of the tower,
surface treatment and the tip speed ration (TSR) [29]. Figure
1 illustrated the location of the proposed vertical axis wind
turbine on the divider of the highway.
Figure 1: VAWT on highway divider [29]
Not only VAWT can be placed on the highways which
normally have two opposite sides divided by either metal or
concrete blocks. Horizontal axis wind turbines (HAWT) can
be housed in concrete blocks, each block may contain two
small HAWT and the blocks are to be placed on the divider
area and at the two sides of the highways to get more energy.
The blocks on the center will be designed to receive the wind
from two directions while the blocks at the sides of the rod
will be designed to receive wind from only one direction.
Figure 2 illustrates the wind turbines in the concrete at the
center and the sides of the highway with the mechanism of
how the wind will enter to the wind turbines from moving
vehicles on the highway [23].
The vehicles number in Malaysia witnessed an increase
for more than double during the time from 2000 to 2013 [16].
With the increasing of middle class in Malaysia, the use of
vehicles expected to be increased as well. With increasing of
vehicles users and high quality highways, people will be
expected to move toward owning comfortable cars and travel
more using personal cars. According to the standards of south
east region of Asia, Malaysia constructed highways and new
planned projects are considered high in quality [17]. The
number of the highways with tolls is 31 highways, with a
total length of 18,000 km across the country [22].
(a) (b)
Figure 2: Location of the concrete blocks at (a) the center and (b) the sides of
the highway [23].
V. WIND SPEED MEASUREMENTS ALONG HIGHWAY
In order to extract the maximum energy form the wind
due to the moving vehicles on the highways, the wind
turbines must be placed in a location with an optimum
lateral distance from the road where the strongest induced
turbulent wind is flowing and at an optimum level from the
ground. In addition to the measurements of the location and
height from the ground for the optimum positioning of the
small scale wind turbine, an orientation measurement was
performed to identify suitable direction in which the
maximum induced turbulent wind flow can be directed
towards the wind turbine. Three EXTECH hot-wire
anemometers (model: SDL350) were set up at different
places each time to measure the velocity of the wind induced
by the vehicles. The anemometers have a data logging
capability to store the recorded measurements of the wind
velocity. The sampling time was set to 1 second for a
duration of 20 minutes. Video camera was used to record the
moving vehicles during the measurements in order to
identify and later to correlate the corresponding wind speed
measurement with the types of vehicle.
The measurements were conducted along the Lebuh SPA
(Sungai Udang - Paya Rumput - Ayer Keroh Highway),
Federal Route 33 (formerly Malacca State Route M17), a
major highway in Malacca state, Malaysia [30]. Steel rack
was erected to hold the hot-wire anemometers at the desired
locations and heights.
A. Lateral distance from the road
The purpose of the wind speed measurement at lateral
distances from the road is to investigate the maximum
vehicle-induced turbulent wind at these distances. The three
anemometers were placed simultaneously at the same level
from the ground with different lateral distances from the
road shoulder. The selected distances from the road were 0.5
m, 1.0 m and 1.5 m. The height levels from the ground were
changed for different measurements to be 0.5 m, 1.0 m and
1.5 m. These distances from the road were kept constant
when changing heights of the anemometers. Figure 3
illustrated the configuration of the three anemometers and
the changing height from the ground at each measurement.
Figure 3: Sketch of the position of the anemometers adjacent to the road.
A sample of the recorded wind velocity of the three
anemometers at various lateral distances (0.5 m, 1.0 m, and
1.5 m) from the road at a height of 0.5 m is shown in Figure
4. Analysis of the data showed that the frequently occurred
peak values of the wind speed corresponded to the large size
vehicles such as lorries or buses that passed by the
anemometers. The maximum recorded wind speed of nearly
4.5 m/s was observed to be read by the anemometer
positioned at 1.0 m from the lateral distance of the road
shoulder. High wind speed at this position is attributed to the
formation of trailing vortices behind and at side region with
a distance about 1.0 m from the body of the vehicle.
Figure 4: Wind velocity for various lateral distances (0.5 m, 1.0 m, and 1.5
m) from the road at a height of 0.5 m.
The same procedures were repeated for when the height
of the three anemometers was increased to 1.0 m and then to
1.5 m. Figure 5 shows a sample of the recorded wind
velocity of the three anemometers at various lateral distances
(0.5 m, 1.0 m, and 1.5 m) from the road at a height of 0.5 m.
The highest recorded wind speed was reaching 6 m/s, a
value which is higher than that of the reading recorded by
anemometer at 1.5 m from the ground. It can be said that the
lateral distance of 1.0 m from the road is the optimum
location to place the wind turbine at all the three different
heights from the ground after the measurements and analysis
of the wind speed due to the moving vehicles.

Figure 5: Wind velocity for various lateral distances (0.5 m, 1.0 m,
and 1.5 m) from the road at a height of 1.0 m.
B. Optimum height from the ground
Based on the result of the measurement for lateral
distance from the road which showed that 1.0 m distance
from the ground is the best location to place the wind
turbine, the three anemometers were fixed at this lateral
distance from the road to find out the optimum height from
the ground at which the wind turbines will be set up. The
anemometers were placed at height of 0.5 m, 1.0 m and 1.5
m from the ground to record the wind velocity at the same
time. Sample of the result is shown in Figure 6.
Figure 5: Wind velocity at 1.0 m distance from the road.
From Figure 6, it can be observed that the anemometer at
1.0 m from the ground recorded the highest wind velocity
with a value of about 5.5 m/s. This could be due to that of
higher intensity of turbulence kinetic energy occurs at about
1.0 m from the side region of the moving vehicles. At the
lateral location of 1.0 m and height of 1.0 m the wind flow
has the maximum speed at which the wind turbines could
extract the highest possible energy from the wind flow due
to the moving vehicles.
C. Orientations relative to the road
HAWT receives the wind only from one direction which
is needed to be determined to direct the HAWT at its
optimum orientation. The three main selected directions
were parallel to the road, perpendicular to the road, and 45
degree from the road Figure 7 illustrates the set up directions
of the three anemometers beside the road. One anemometer
was set in each orientation to obtain the best result. The
three anemometers were placed at 1.0 m height from the
ground.
Road
Figure 6: Setup of the three anemometers at various orientations
The recorded result of the three anemometers is shown
on the plot in Figure 8. The speed of the wind at each
direction showed a clear difference between the readings at
each direction. The highest wind speed comes from the
anemometer that directed 45 degree to the road, the second
highest is the parallel to the road and the lowest speed is
from the direction that is perpendicular to the road.
Figure 7: Wind velocity at different orientations at 1.0 m height and 1.0 m
distance from the road.
For HAWT it can be said that the optimum set up is to
place it at a distance of 1.0 m from the road, at height of 1.0
m from the ground and to be dircted at 45 degree from the
road to obtian the height possible energy from the wind du to
the moving vehicles on the roads.
VI. CFD SIMULATION
A. 3D vehicle models
Three different sizes of vehicles, i.e. a lorry, a multi-
purpose vehicle (MPV) and a sedan car were modelled with
their average overall dimensions similar to the real on-the-
road vehicles except that the models were built without
detailing such as side mirror, doors, and full tires which is
believed to have negligible effects in the simulation result.
Each of the models was drawn as one block and is shown in
Figure 9.
(a) (b) (c)
Figure 8: 3D Models for different vehicles (a) lorry, (b) MPV, and (c) sedan
B. The simulation model setup
ANSYS software was used to achieve the CFD analysis
to study the wind flow behavior around the moving vehicles
on the highways. ANSYS FLUENT was selected to perform
the analysis of wind flow which is a suitable tool in ANSYS
to analyze the fluid flow. Each of the 3D vehicles model
were imported to Geometry window in ANSYS FLUENT to
perform the simulation process. A box shape enclosure was
chosen to surround the half of each 3D model rather than the
full model in order to reduce the time of analyzing. There
will be no difference in the result which will give a
symmetry result when using the full body. The length,
width and height of the box are three times the length of the
vehicle and five times the length of the vehicle at the back of
each model.
In the mesh sizing selection of proximity and curvature
in advance size function, medium in smoothing, the cells
across GAP are 5 cells and the other sittings were kept
default. Inflation was selected to be First Aspect Ratio. The
faces of the models were named in order for the ANSYS to
recognize them and perform the simulation such as the inlet,
outlet, symmetry, the vehicle body and the road. k- Epsilon
model was selected with a wind speed from inlet as 25 m/s
(90 km/h) which is the estimated speed of the vehicles on the
road where to field measurement of the wind speed was
performed.
C. CFD results
The running of the previous setup shows the wind flow
around the three different vehicles model. The lorry gives
the height wind velocity. Vectors result around the lorry
model is shown in Figure 10 at 1.0 m height plan from the
ground. The optimum location where the velocity is the
highest can be found by taking the measurement near to the
lorry and alone the lorry.
Figure 9: Vectors of the wind flow around the side of the lorry model at 1.0
m height
At 1.0 m height from the ground, a measurement at
straight line from the lorry was taken to give the wind
velocity as in figure 11. 1.5 m is the width of the half of the
lorry and at around 2.5 m which is 1.0 m from the lorry body
it can be observed that is the location that has the highest
wind velocity.
Figure 10: Wind velocity next to the lorry at 1.0 m height.
At the location of 1.0 m from the lorry another
measurement of the wind velocity in CFD was taken in order
to get the optimum height from the ground. As illustrated in
Figure 12, the maximum wind velocity is at 1.0 m height
above ground which is the optimum location where the wind
velocity has the maximum velocity.
Figure 11: Wind speed along the lorry height.
The result of the MPV and Sedan models shows there
was no high wind velocity when going further from the
vehicles bodies in which the highest wind velocities were
near to the vehicles while moving on the road. This makes it
difficult to use the wind generated from the small size
vehicles alone to run the SWT to get enough electricity.
However, by considering the wind flow from the different
size vehicles moving on the road the wind flow can be used
to run the SWT along the highways.
VII. CONCLUSION
Current work has experimentally and numerically
determined the optimum positions for the wind turbine
placement adjacent to the highway in order to extract
maximum wind energy from the vehicle-induced turbulent
airflow. The optimum positions found were: 1.0 m lateral
distance from the road shoulder, 1.0 m height above the
ground, and 45° orientation relative to the road. The findings
serve as a good reference for the optimum placement of the
wind turbines along the highways in Malaysia. In future
work, commercial small scale wind turbines (HAWT and
VAWT) may be characterized in terms of their performances
and installed along the highway with the mentioned
optimum positions for power measurement. The output
power can then be used for the purpose of the highway
lighting and telecommunication signaling.
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