As global warming increases, renewables are becoming a solution to provide the world with electricity while limiting the effect of fossil fuels emissions. Streetlights on highways are sources of electricity usage that consume a significant amount of energy. The cost is not only associated with the lights but also due to very long cables to satisfy. This study provides a comprehensive solution utilizing Savonius vertical axis wind turbines (VAWT).

In this design, the light pole is the turbine. The pole is split into 2 sections. The upper half is rotated using normal incoming wind. The bottom half of the pole utilizes the wind gusts coming from the fast-moving cars on the highway. Both sections are connected to the generator with the same shaft supplying the required power. The turbine's body is epoxy coated stainless steel with a cover for the bearing to overcome pitting and corrosion issues while maintaining low weight for higher rotational speed.

To make sure that this design is operational, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) was utilized to simulate the setup. Some assumption were made for the number of passing cars to be 1 car moving at 80 Km/hr every 30 seconds. Taking Cairo-Suez highway with a naturally occurring wind speed averaged at 7 m/s It was found that a single turbine pole can provide enough energy to power 16 light poles. A prototype was then manufactured and tested, it showed similar results to the simulation.

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