Zhong Yan’s idea first came from a business trip he took while driving in the fall of 2008. At that time, he was driving along the Beijing-Shanghai Expressway towards Shandong. He noticed that where the car passed, the leaves of the green belt on the highway began to shake significantly. Zhong Yan had a sudden thought: Since natural wind can be used to generate electricity, why can't this artificial wind be used?
After returning to Beijing, he told several technicians about his ideas. After several discussions, they found that capturing the wind in subway tunnels was an ideal choice. Although there are tunnels on highways and ordinary railways, these tunnels are short in length and are not conducive to the collection of wind energy. Subway tunnels are closed underground and have a long mileage, making them the best tunnel system for collecting wind energy.
Zhong Yan believes that as long as suitable fans are installed on both tunnel walls of a subway tunnel, power generation can be generated, and this electric energy will be transmitted to the subway platform through transmission, energy storage, grid connection and other links. This can solve the problem of electricity consumption for lighting and billboards in subway stations.