Solar roadways

[slippereend]

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways

I think this is a great idea which could solve a whole bunch of problems we're facing nowadays as a society.
Just wanted to tell more people who might be interested in something like this


"Solar Roadways is a modular paving system of solar panels that can withstand the heaviest of trucks (250,000 pounds). These Solar Road Panels can be installed on roads, parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, bike paths, playgrounds... literally any surface under the sun. They pay for themselves primarily through the generation of electricity, which can power homes and businesses connected via driveways and parking lots. A nationwide system could produce more clean renewable energy than a country uses as a whole (http://solarroadways.com/numbers.shtml). They have many other features as well, including: heating elements to stay snow/ice free, LEDs to make road lines and signage, and attached Cable Corridor to store and treat stormwater and provide a "home" for power and data cables. EVs will be able to charge with energy from the sun (instead of fossil fuels) from parking lots and driveways and after a roadway system is in place, mutual induction technology will allow for charging while driving. "

 

[Thaluikhain]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134382-Solar-Roadways-Seeks-1M-to-Replace-Streets-with-Solar-Panels

The idea sounds reasonable, only less practical than existing technologies. It would be easier to stick panels on roofs, and people aren't doing that.

Also, the idea of having heating to clear them of ice and snow...why are you building your solar power things in areas where they get ice and snow on them?

A nationwide system "could" generate more power than the country uses, but so could building a zillion hamster wheels. Doesn't make it a good idea.

 

[Esotera]

It seems like a bit of a gimmick, there's almost no chance of damage if you stick solar panels on a roof, whereas sticking them on a road subjects them to heavy stress and possibly vandalism. Also I would be interested to know how efficient this technology is in comparison to existing panels, and whether it costs more per unit.

Also, the whole point of generating solar energy is to maximise the amount of sunlight you get hitting panels - that will not happen if cars are stuck in traffic jams on top of your power plant for a considerable number of hours each day.

 

[slippereend]

Well as far as I can tell the solar panels are already designed especially to withstand heavy wheater conditions and the weight of cars and trucks.
The designers state the following on their indiegogo page:
"Our glass surface has been tested for traction, load testing, and impact resistance testing in civil engineering laboratories around the country, and exceeded all requirements."

And ofcourse it wouldn't make sense to place these panels in places where it snows all the time, but this system does work if it only snows every once in the while.
It would actually be safer to have these solar panels instead of regular roads since the chance of getting into an car accident is probably a lot lower when the roads aren't covered in snow and ice.

You do have a point that these panels can't collect that much energy when they're constantly blocked by traffic, but you can get around that by choosing carefully where you place these panels. (not roads which are constanly full with traffic)

 

[Zontar]

This whole thing seems hopelessly optimistic to me. I mean hell, is it even worth the cost? It's already hard enough to build solar panels which make enough energy to justify their own existence, now we want to make them need to hold up to the stress of traffic as well? I'll believe that when I see it.

 

[BOOM headshot65]

It seems like a bit of a gimmick, there's almost no chance of damage if you stick solar panels on a roof, whereas sticking them on a road subjects them to heavy stress and possibly vandalism. Also I would be interested to know how efficient this technology is in comparison to existing panels, and whether it costs more per unit.

Also, the whole point of generating solar energy is to maximise the amount of sunlight you get hitting panels - that will not happen if cars are stuck in traffic jams on top of your power plant for a considerable number of hours each day.

This. I say that if we are going to be using the heat that gets into the road as power, do what the military base near my home did: Build the solar panels on 10'-11' tall beams in the parking lot, then you can park under it for shade (which also means no more fighting for that shady tree on a hot day at the store) and it will obviously catch solar energy and use it to power nearby buildings, and it would require very little change to existing infrastructure. Sounds like a win/win to me, much better than Solar roads.

 

[NoMercy Rider]

Since I am actually a registered roadway engineer by trade, I have quite a bit of skepticism about this. To me this all sounds like a wonderful pipe dream, but could never fulfill its promises. I have three main issues with this.

Number 1: Longevity. You know, it's great that they've done all these tests for impacts and ability to support heavy truck loads, but no tests can reliably predict fatigue loads and long term impacts. You can do cyclic load testing which gives a more accurate result, but there is still a lot of error. I would also like to know how much differential settlement between panels these can handle before all the conduits and integrated stormwater treatment fails to function. I know with utility companies, a 1" settlement is about the maximum they can handle before seeing serious issues. But they use flexible pipe to handle these settlements. As soon as you incorporate fixed conduit like concrete, small amounts of settlement would cause large problems. And you will get settlement, there is no avoiding it. No matter how well the road subgrade is prepared, water intrusion, vibratory impacts, temperature differential, etc etc etc will lead to settlement of some degree.

They mention that these can be placed on top of existing roadway surfaces, but a roadway is only good as its weakest link. Frequently maintenance crews will pave over cracked asphalt roads, but that is just a temporary band-aid. Those cracks will propagate upwards to the new surface. There would be no difference with this system. Every road has a practical design life, I don't care what the material is... hell it could be paved with titanium and it would still have some functional design life. Asphalt roads are typically 25-35 years... you might be able to push 50 years if you use a thicker pavement section. Concrete roads can go for 100 years with minor maintenance. I would love to see how this compares.

Number 2: Installation Labor. This is great and all, but the labor required for initial installation must be astronomical. You know why asphalt and concrete is such an appealing roadway surface? Because they have machines and equipment that can pave miles upon miles in a single day. From what I can see, it looks like every individual panel must be bolted down to the underlying surface with four bolts. Can you imagine the amount of work and number of laborers required to bolt down every single panel? And what happens if there are fitting issues in the field and one of the panels doesn't quite match up to the existing field conditions, this would be a nightmare waiting to happen. And this is an installation process that I could not see being automated in any effective way.

Number 3: (and most important) Cost. Have you noticed that they haven't disclosed approximate cost in any of their videos or FAQ's? I can only imagine the initial costs are astronomically higher than traditional roadways. And traditional roadways are already freaking expensive. As a rough estimation number, you can figure $1 million per mile of asphalt road, even more if its a concrete roadway. How many times more expensive is this system? 2x? 5x? 100x? I just can't imagine this being cheap.

Sure, you could argue that the generating power will offset that cost, but where is the break even point? It's gonna take "x" number of years before you recoup that initial investment. Going back to point #1, is that break even point longer than the design life? If so, then this road system would not be fiscally viable. Plus, most roads are publicly owned. Good luck trying to convince voters to support building a road 10 times more expensive than a normal road and its going to take at least 50 years to recoup that investment.


Anyway, I hate to be such a skeptic. It looks like a great idea on paper, but I just don't see this ever being financially/functionally practical.

 

[ultrabiome]

Yeah, I think the super scale version of this is a little far fetched; however, I could see a market for this in places like drive-ways, parking lots, and some side streets. I'd totally get some for my house if I could afford it (or owned a house!).

 

[Bad Jim]

A solar panel fitted into a road will produce less power than the same panel fitted on a flat roof, because it will periodically have cars driving over it. Why not put them on roofs?

 

[renegade7]

It seems like a bit of a gimmick, there's almost no chance of damage if you stick solar panels on a roof, whereas sticking them on a road subjects them to heavy stress and possibly vandalism. Also I would be interested to know how efficient this technology is in comparison to existing panels, and whether it costs more per unit.

It will. Efficient solar panels are very fragile and incredibly expensive because they use rare materials in very delicate arrangements, they are absolutely not suited to being driven on. Even if you use more robust materials they still would wear down quickly being driven on, and though you could protect them with glass or some kind of hard plastic that would vastly reduce the amount of energy they can get from light.

Then there's the vandalism thing. Just one of those panels would cost around a thousand USD at the size they look to be, given how much a solar array here in the states costs. And they're just sitting there on the street waiting for the first person with a pry bar to come along.

And how will they deal with heat and cold expansion? As the seasons change, asphalt in the roads expands and contracts and can crack and warp pretty easily. That's not a huge problem for asphalt, but the brittle and rigid materials in those panels would be ruined.

It's a nice idea, but it's logistically too risky to be a solution.

What they could do instead is build a structure that mounts the solar panels above the road like they do for highway road signs, or install solar panels along the median or roadside, although I guess that might put them at a risk of being run into. Not only is it safer for the panels, but they can use more efficient panels for less cost since they wouldn't need to worry as much about durability.

 

[NoMercy Rider]

What they could do instead is build a structure that mounts the solar panels above the road like they do for highway road signs, or install solar panels along the median or roadside, although I guess that might put them at a risk of being run into. Not only is it safer for the panels, but they can use more efficient panels for less cost since they wouldn't need to worry as much about durability.

This is a much better idea. I can't even begin to put a number on the extra costs for the extra durable glass and the associated energy loss through that medium. Why try to reinvent the wheel of solar panel manufacturing when there is already a well established manufacturing process that has been eliminating inefficiencies in the system?

The thing is, there is a lot of unused retail space along the roadway section that could be easily utilized for traditional solar panels. You mentioned medians, which is a great idea. Also, highway interchanges require a very large footprint and there is a lot of unused retail space to build the appropriate on/off ramp returns.

The Oregon DOT actually went along with the idea and built a pilot project at one of their highway changes. This was the first implementation in the country, and I believe other states have slowly implemented the idea as well. Currently the solar panels provide 1/3 of the required electricity for lighting at the interchange. Seems like a reasonable success to me. They have a website with more information for folks that are interested:

http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/OIPP/pages/inn_solarhighway.aspx

 

[Flutterguy]

Using glow in the dark paint sounds like a far more practical improvement to me.

Self heating roads sounds a bit too lofty a goal.

 

[Tiger King]

at 3:20...ish
'we didn't have the funding for load cells"

this would bother a lot of investors.

I applaud what they are doing but it looks a big challenge

 

[Someone Depressing]

It seems like a cool idea; but those panels could get damaged, or littered, and probably not work.

Especially here in Britain; we've got a huge gum problem. To the point where spitting gum on the street is now a mildly serious crime, somewhere between arson and murder. (hypberbole, but still fundamentally true) so that simply wouldn't work for this country; or most northern Europeon countries. Although it gets very hot in the summer, every other time is lukewarm at best and fucking freezing at worst.

...And doesn't one million dollars seem a little small? For, like, an entire, huge country?

 

[LooK iTz Jinjo]

Put this on the Stuart Highway in Australia (It runs from Darwin in the North, to Port Augusta in South Australia) and you probably could generate enough power to power the whole country.

 

[Veylon]

Another problem nobody's mentioned: roadways are low. They're on the ground, after all. Anything nearby would shade them, reducing whatever power they'd produce.

Another one: the surfaces would get grimy/scratched up. That'd reduce whatever light they'd get as well.

Alongside the roads makes a certain amount of sense, given that the site is right next to the transportation route you need to deliver it and very often right next to the power lines as well.

Using glow in the dark paint sounds like a far more practical improvement to me.

Self heating roads sounds a bit too lofty a goal.

This part has been done (though not with solar). Heated roadways don't form ice and thus don't need sanding, salting, or plowing and thus don't suffer the damages (or costs) associated with those things.

 

[Something Amyss]

Also, the idea of having heating to clear them of ice and snow...why are you building your solar power things in areas where they get ice and snow on them?

Doesn't that disqualify your rooftop plan, too? Or perhaps, just the northern part of the US as a whole?

 

[Thaluikhain]

Also, the idea of having heating to clear them of ice and snow...why are you building your solar power things in areas where they get ice and snow on them?

Doesn't that disqualify your rooftop plan, too? Or perhaps, just the northern part of the US as a whole?

The latter, though I guess you could slope them to avoid that, at least to an extent.

 

[Something Amyss]

The latter, though I guess you could slope them to avoid that, at least to an extent.

Or just maintain them or use heater elements, or both. I'm missing out on why this is such a "bad" idea, living in the Northeast and knowing people who do this to positive returns.