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World's First 'Solar Panel Road' Opens In France (theverge.com)
The world's first solar road has officially opened in the small village of Tourouvre-au-Perche in Normandy, France. The road is 1 kilometer long and can generate enough electricity to power the street lights. The Verge reports: That might not sound very impressive for 30,000 square feet of solar panels -- and it kind of isn't, especially for its $5.2 million price tag. The panels have been covered in a silicon-based resin that allows them to withstand the weight of passing big rigs, and if the road performs as expected, Royal wants to see solar panels installed across 1,000 kilometers of French highway. There are numerous issues, however. For one, flat solar panels are less effective than the angled panels that are installed on roofs, and they're also massively more expensive than traditional panels. Colas, the company that installed the road, hopes to reduce the cost of the panels going forward and it has around 100 solar panel road projects in progress around the world. Earlier this year, Solar Roadways partnered with the Missouri Department of Transportation to upgrade a small stretch of the historic Route 66 roadway with solar-powered panels. They too are facing the same seemingly insurmountable cost problems as Colas and the French.
So is this a technology not even worth trying to develop with small scale pilots?
Yes, the challenges are huge but I can't help but think that it's kind of worth experimenting with if only for the improvements in roadway quality. The biggest challenges to solar roads are durability and if that problem can be solved then theoretically it can benefit any road even if you build it without solar generation.
If they can get the cost of it within an order of magnitude of traditional roads, make it last 2x or more longer and generate power it starts to seem like a worthwhile investment. You'll never get there without test segments to try ideas and see what can be made to work.
We spend a ton on roadways now using basically the same construction materials and techniques we've used for 75 years and we're bitching that solar roads won't last. Well no shit, fucking cars would't last long either if we built them like we did in 1950, either, yet we say we can't build a better road? Maybe we're not trying.
Yes, the cost of this road is very high. So was the cost of all early solar panels. Solar panels have come down in cost to the point where they are now cheaper than any other source of electricity, except wind. Batteries are the same. Early battery storage was very expensive. Now the cost has come down to the point where hard headed utilities are installing battery peaking storage because it is cheap.
This road is expensive but it is a prototype research project. It may or may not turn out to be cost effective in the long run but it should be tested.
If you're worried about public subsidies, you might start with the $ 5.3 trillion a year that fossil fuels receive.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
This looks like a Research project, not an Infrastructure project. Its not intended to solve a problem today, its intended to better understand moving an idea from the laboratory to the real world in the future. In short its an experiment, investigating a day when some future much higher efficiency and much more durable technology might be incorporated into roads.
How much do you think 1 km of a normal road costs?
Hint: about a third of this solar panel road, and that was just a pilot project. If it works well - and the solar panels might even live longer than tarmac - then it will be quite cost-effective in mass production.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Sure, you still have to provide a road surface no matter what. You are forced to spend that money, so you have to choose between tarmac or something else. If the something else costs the same or less and has other benefits, the choice is clear.
That's what this whole thing rests on. If they can get the price down to a point where it's about the same as the tarmac surface they were going to use anyway (and the French use quality tarmac finishes, not the cheap stuff, and don't forget labour costs and maintenance costs) there is no reason not to do it.
Colas seem to think they can hit that price point.
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