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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.
There must be people in high places who can't add, for these projects to be getting built.
The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
Nuff said
https://www.youtube.com/user/T...
Once you have achieved a feat like this, the last thing you want is for your shiny new solar road thingy to be destroyed by tigers. I've got access to the finest all natural tiger repellent. I've been wearing it for a year and haven't had one tiger mess with me. Please have the people in this city's procurement office give me a ring, and I will give them a great price. While I have them on the line, I will mention some of my other offerings: hyperloop, water seer, and magic beans.
The taxpayers of this town are the real VIP.
They find out that installing those panel on the side of the road at an angle will greatly increase the power output, and that you don't need to keep cleaning the panels, and that with nothing to interrupt the sun light and effectively turn off sections of panels, they can also increase the power output, and that without heavy vehicules running over and screating the panels, they can have constant power output for the lifetime of the panel, and that you don't need to interrupt traffic everytime a panel gets damage and kill a whole section, and that.....
Solar panel roads are just plain stupid.
Can someone tell us what the benefit of these solar "roadways" is that isn't apparent and justifies the absurd expenditure vs. installation on roofs and open fields? I am truly at a loss to explain why this technology continues to be ramrodded into deployment.
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
But Main Street's still all cracked and broken
Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken
Monorail!
5.2 million dollars sounds like a lot, would be curious to see how the price would go down over time...
I'd be interested to see how it performs against piezoelectric roads, which have a far lower price point:
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2012/ph240/garland1/
Also, unless the location is always sunny, some days it may barely generate any power at all? So depending on what performs better, it seems to me that a piezoelectric road would generate far more electricity on a busy street.
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.
5.2 million dollars sounds like a lot, would be curious to see how the price would go down over time...
I'd be interested to see how it performs against piezoelectric roads, which have a far lower price point: http://large.stanford.edu/cour... Also, unless the location is always sunny, some days it may barely generate any power at all? So depending on what performs better, it seems to me that a piezoelectric road would generate far more electricity on a busy street.
Yeah sure. I'll bet this experiment is about 99 percent testing the road surface instead of getting maximum bang for the buck out of the solar power. Also, since its powering street lamps, I suspect that there might be a battery or two in the loop as well, since the lights will be on during the night, when the sun isn't in the right place.
Now between us chachalacas, I doubt that solar roadways will be all that great for a long time. But I also remember in 1977 that Solar power from Crystalline silicon was . 76 per watt, and in 2015, it was .30 per watt. So I won't discount roadway solar yet. Let them do the experiments.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
You may know that under-inflated tires greatly reduce gas mileage. A bendy road would be similar - it would be taking energy from the cars, so they have to burn more gas to keep going. That's where the energy comes from in a piezoelectric road - from burning more gas.
If we wanted to generate electricity by burning gasoline, there are generator designs at least 250 times more efficient than piezoelectric.
French project actually works and it doesn't try to heat the snow away or light up that deer while it's crossing the road.
French have just made a highly durable and highly expensive type of solar panels. And they've covered a kilometer of road with those panels, for test purposes.
Solar FREAKING Highways crowd haven't made shit but a small section of sidewalk.
Consisting of 30 panels. And they missed their deadline on that cause their panel manufacturing process burned out their panels.
Both projects ARE going the wrong way about generating electricity from solar power.
But French might actually get there some day.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
If you have the solar panels at an angle, it's hard to drive on them!
Not if they are on a heavily banked high-speed turn. Perfect for high-speed European driving.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
Why not just leave the roads black like they always were and use the heat it accumulates? Seems like less of a mess around.
$5.2 million for 30k square feet is roughly $175/sq. ft.
A quick search shows that PV solar panels generate roughly 8-10 watts/sq. ft.
Since the average price of electricity in the US is roughly $0.12/kwh, $175 would buy about 1500 kwh (1.5Mwh) of electricity.
So a sq. ft. of PV solar panel would generate $175 of electricity in about...
150000 hours -- or 6250 days -- or roughly 17 years (assuming you have optimal conditions 24/7/365).
But this is truly a breakthrough, in solar journalism at least. This may be the first time in decades I've seen a story about some new solar power idea that isn't drowning in gosh-wow enthusiasm . This is so impressive, I was toying with the idea of jumping in and defending the possibility that this technology might someday be perfected... The trouble is, I think I'd rather have a roof over the roadway where it can act as a sunshade (in CA) and keep the snow off (in places you probably don't want to rely on solar anyway, but what the hell).
$5mil = enough electricity to power the street lights ... for about 100 years
Who logs in to gdm? Not I, said the duck.
In fact, no. It's said that the power generated by this kilometer of solar panels is suffisant for the street lights of a city of 5000. And the cost per produced watt is x10 in comparison with a classic solar panel (source : french article).
They were scammed, and scammed good.
I'll bet this experiment is about 99 percent testing the road surface instead of getting maximum bang for the buck out of the solar power.
So you think they used crappy solar cells in their pilot? No, they built the best cells they knew how to build, and this is still the result. It's a shit idea for a broad variety of reasons, all of which are related to cars and trucks driving over them.
Someday in the mysterious future when the production cost of these roadways is much, much less than it would be today (and I'm not talking about the prototype cost either) it may make sense to install solar roads. But right now, it makes literally less than no sense.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Once they start mass production the cost will fall. When considering the cost, you have to factor in labour costs and the cost of closing the road for the time required to resurface it too, and how long the road surface will last, and what the on-going maintenance costs are.
And in the meantime, putting the solar panels *beside the road* (*) is still cheaper, more energy efficient and their installation is a tiny bit less invasive to traffic.
--
(*) : like roofing over a bike path, on the roof of noise barriers, or simply along the road, etc. I.e.: places where the surface also belongs to the department of public roads, but where the panels are much more efficient by being better oriented and not shadowed by the traffic, where aren't subject to constant wear and tear by said traffic, and thus won't need tons of engineering to come up with a solution that could protect tham (like TFA's silicon layer).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
This is France we are talking about, 90% of its electricity is nuclear, as a result it produces very little CO2 (around 25g/kWh).
If we are talking global warming, solar panels will actually make things worse.
If you can spend the same or even a bit less over a few decades by installing a pre-fab road surface with solar PV, you will do it even if that PV is less efficient than it would be on a roof.
The thing is, adding photovoltaic capability to a road isn't trivial. At all.
It's not just using the king of "coat of Photo Voltaic paint" that is mentioned in some Sci-Fi books that would be just mixed with the road's tar
(that would be rather trivially simple, if it existed).
It's need to go at great length and expenses to achieve the engineering feat of taking something which is expensive and fragile and never designed to sustain repeated mechanical stress (a solar panel) and try to engineer around the limitation to cram it into a road tile.
To be more precise :
There are advantages to pre-fabricated surfaces mass produced in a factory and quickly laid on site. The fact that they can put solar PV in the surface is just a bonus to reduce total cost of ownership.
The problem is this thing you call "a bonus" (adding a PV panel into the pre-fab surface) is not a small feat at all.
In the current state of affairs (technology available in this decade), it will require a tremendous amount of engineering, cost a tons of money, will require an enormous amount of compromises in order to pull of...
The sheer amount of investment to achieve this completely dwarfs any potential reduction of cost of ownership.
All the while putting the solar panel beside the road is a viable and much cheaper solution.
This is exactly the same kind of overcomplicated and expensive over-engineering, like trying to cram an electric handle bar warmer in a bike, when you could just use fucking gloves
(But who knows, as regular PV panel become more popular, and strat to be put to lots of use, maybe by next decade, they will get much cheaper and slowly become more durable. To the point wher in 2026 it might be not stupid to try to find a way to engineer them into pre-fab pavement).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yes, government own the surface occupied currently by the streets.
So they want to make this surface more useful.
But given the engineering complexity of trying to find a way to cram the delicate and expensive technology (PV panels) into pre-fab street pavement,
from a purely economic point of view, it would make much more sense to invest the money into erecting poles (when there isn't already a handy above-ground surface like noise barriers, a roofing, etc.) and putting plain simple vanilla panels.
They will also put the surface they own to use (prduce electricity) but at a fraction of the cost.
(Also by increasing thusly the demand for solar panel, they help driving their cost down. Which means that by *buying panels to put them beside the road now*, they'll help making them cheaper within a decade, to the point that it might become economically smart to try to cram them into pre-fab street pavement by 2026).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Yes but you still have to build the road, and I'm pretty sure that it represents a big chunk of the total bill.
Sounds like someone got a good bucket sized serving from the gravy trough here to have this happen. The outcome is most likely going to be poor on efficiency and higher than "anticipated" on maintenance ( which will be no shock ), and the next bucket sized serving of gravy will be served up to "research" the issues further and facilitate someone's lifestyle.
Nuclear powered roads is the solution that NIMBYs won't let us have.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
There are plenty of other places that would be much more appropriate for solar panels without the extra cost.
Sidewalks would be much easier to do. Roofs of any modern buildings. South facing walls of said buildings. Carports for cars on public and private property. Covered walk ways. Utility poles that already have power lines strung on them.
This is a company chasing government dollars, not one with a viable product.
Someday in the mysterious future when the production cost of these roadways is much, much less than it would be today (and I'm not talking about the prototype cost either) it may make sense to install solar roads. But right now, it makes literally less than no sense.
I wonder how we will find the ways to do this that make sense?
I've participated in a lot of failed technology tests. The tests were failures, but the results were not. We learned a method that did not work, and found valuable clues to what might work. So changes were made, and eventually we honed in on successful tests.
It is exactly how research is performed. If we don't perform tests, we won't learn to do it right. Is it impossible to do it right? We can learn that as well. I only object to Slashdotters pronouncing it a deadlock failure.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The parent article says this is for street lights. Problem is, nobody needs a solar road to do this. Companies are selling solar-powered street lights that have a PV panel on the same pole as the light. Each unit operates independently, so wiring is limited to the panel and the pole. Maintenance is a lot easier than trying to swap out part of a road (assuming the other engineering problems can be solved).
And for $5.2 million, I doubt the solar road will pay for itself before it needs to be replaced. Investment fail.
http://www.happynewyear2017ima...
What is the actual performance of this new material for the job that it's meant to do, i.e. being a road? How is traction affected? What about at temperature extremes? What about rain and snow? What about when the road is salted or has gravel on it? Roads take a lot of abuse...
Also, how is the power production affected when the road inevitably develops some cracks? What about repair and maintenance cost?
In the US, it costs $1 billion for a 17 mile road project where they are completely redoing the highway and adding a lane each way. (http://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2016/08/15/i-75-rebuild-starts-monday/88638126/). With the added lane, that makes for 4 lanes each way for 17 miles. This makes 138 miles of one lane. 1 billion / 138 = $7.25 million per mile of regular road per lane. For this solar project, it is 5 million Euro for 1 km. The picture only showed this as one lane on one side of the road. 5 million Euro equals $5.22 million USD per mile. To go from km to miles, we get $8.4 million USD per mile of solar road per lane. Further breaking this down, it is about 16% more expensive to construct a mile of solar road than it is for regular road. Not bad.
Unless they are boosting the DC voltage up to thousands of volts the transmission losses will be huge. There is a reason that DC lost out for power transmission.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I understand where you are coming from, but I would point out that surfacing a road is not cheap. The raw materials are a small part of the cost. Closing the road, having engineers on site, equipment on site, labourers to do the work, and then confirmation that it meets the requires spec (particularly important on fast roads)...
Because on the other hand, pre-fab street pavement is going to automagically jump out of the factory and directly install it self where needed ?
(...though this might actually become possible within a century of robotics development...)
Nope. Both will have costs for installation, both will require closing roads, etc.
The only difference is that, purely as a street surface material, (normal non solar) pre-fab street pavement might not that much more expensive than some of the high quality asphalt covering used accross Europe (the most durable possible to minimize needs to repair ; noise reducing properties ; etc.) and might be a little bit faster to produce and install.
So you've arrived at the logical conclusion that a plain non solar pre-fab street pavement might be not such a bad idea. So what's the next logical step ?
" - Hey, let's cram into the pre-fab tile a fragile technology that is awfully more complex, cost outrageously much more, will now require the presence of electricians just to install, and requires tons of engineering in the first place to actually get developped !"
Yeah, I don't see why so many people are complaining about this idea.
In 2016, it simply doesn't make sens to even start considering putting photovoltaic cells on street pavement - for anything except just as a proof of concept at some science fair just to demo what we could be thinking to develop after a decade.
To me, it all makes as much sense as "crowd-funding to create a *fast-food chain* selling burgers out of vat-grown meat on the wonderful grounds of 'Cruelty-free, 100% guaranteed NON-murder-meat !'. Openning : Next month !". In 2016. When a single burger of cultured meat costs in the price range of million dollars.
Yes, one day, once the process is scaled to the point where it is economically viable - vat-grown bugers will definitely be the way to go
(on multiple grounds. Not only on ethical ground regarding animal welfare, but also on ground that growing a culture is much less stressing the environment than growing animal which in turn are going to need cultured food, etc.)
For now, if you need that much desperately cruelty-free foods there are much more viable option if you want to open a fast-food chain next month (tofu, falafels, etc.)
and leave the vat-grown burger to the scientist for what it is worth now : proof of concept of what could technologically be achievable one day.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
tried something based in a logical hypothesis.
And why are you assuming they aren't?
Sure this small portion of road cost a pretty penny, but it is for testing. If it turns out to be durable and efficient, why not? One big problem with solar farms is that they take up a lot of space. Road are already eminent domain, to the space is available.
This makes sense. But fails to deal with the property problem. A city or province or country owns it's roads and can put solar under on them. It doesn't own all the buildings. So what makes sense from an engineering point of view is scuppered by our increasingly anachronistic ideas around property. Those ideas will be sorely tested as the seas begin to cover the coasts in the decades ahead.
Only boring people are ever bored.
I'm exceedingly pleased for the first, ineffective version. You can't have good stuff before the crap.
What happens when they get dirty?
What if potholes develop?
What about a cargo spill, perhaps from an accident?
What is the traction like during rain?
I am not sure I get that uber-expensive solar panels to drive on make sense. Is it just me that is missing some point or purpose here?
Self-importance and self-indulgence is the root of ALL evil.