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France To Pave 1000km of Road With Solar Panels (solarcrunch.org)
An anonymous reader writes: France is planning on a project to build 1000 kilometers of road with specially designed solar panels. This project will supply 5 million people in France with electricity if it is successful. Though many solar experts are skeptical of this project, the French government has given the go-ahead to this venture.
According to France's minister of ecology and energy, Ségolène Royal, the tender for this project is already issued under the "Positive Energy" initiative and the test for the solar panels will begin by this spring.The photo voltaic solar panels called "Wattway" which will be used in the project are jointly developed by the French infrastructure firm "Colas" and the National Institute for Solar Energy. The specialty of "Wattway" is that its very sturdy and can let heavy trucks pass over it, also offering a good grip to avoid an accident. Interestingly, this project will not remove road surfaces but instead, the solar panels will be glued to the existing pavement.
Do government ministers check their brains into deep storage when they are elected?
There are sooo many things wrong with this concept; the first being grip.
How do you make glass grip? You have severely roughen the surface which will make the light scatter severely reducing efficiency.
They are not angled correctly. They will get damaged. Very expensive because they have withstand trucks... any anyway, next time France gets invaded, the tank tracks will rip them to pieces.
Just go find a nice field to put them in,
Dave at EEVblog has already covered the concept in depth.
http://www.eevblog.com/forum/b...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
http://www.eevblog.com/2015/05...
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Even in heavy traffic, the overwhelming majority of the road is exposed. And yes, that's the 405, in a high traffic area.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
Like how hold concrete becomes slippery? Yep, just like with concrete, you need to resurface. But one expects them to use anti-scratch coatings, which would significantly reduce the rate of wear. The aggregate in typical concrete can be up to Mohs 7, but the cement is only Mohs 2-5. Raw unprotected glass is Mohs 5-6,5, but scratch resistant coatings can raise it to over 7 to avoid being scratched by quartz sand.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.
What road do you live near where the surface is packed full of rubber tire marks? Must be pretty miserable to live there, with people burning tires all the time.
Hahahaha.... oh geez... :)
Let's back all the way back to third grade and cover the topic of "photosynthesis". You see, plants need light from the sun to grow! Now class, take one of those seeds you sprouted and put it on your windowsill, and put the other in the closet... we'll bring them back to compare in two weeks. Don't forget to water!
The amount of light transmission is probably the biggest factor in greenhouse design. Here in Iceland people have to use glass (most common) or hard plastic (less common) because of the wind, thin plastic hoop houses don't survive here. Most commonly used is single pane glass. Yes, you read that right. Here in a country with "ice" in the name, it's still considered worthwhile to let the heat pour out of your greenhouse in order to get a few extra percent sunlight. Now, we have hot water for heating which reduces (but doesn't eliminate) heating costs, but still, it drives home the point: to growers, light equals growth.
Greenhouses most definitely do not rely on "IR alone".
If you're curious as to why fogged surfaces are often seen as desirable in greenhouses - it's because of shading. Fogging only causes the greenhouse to lose a couple to several percent of the light (depending on the type of plastic or glass), but it means that all of the light is no longer coming from the same angle. This helps get light to leaves that would otherwise be shaded by other leaves.
Ironically, contrarily to what you wrote, glass-covered solar panels do care about IR transmission. They don't generate power from IR, but their efficiency is correlated to their temperature, and the temperature is correlated with the radiative equilibrium of their environment.
It's times like this I wish I had a friend named 'The Professor'.