(PhysOrg.com) – In a first step toward turning highways into energy-generating solar panels, the Sagle, Idaho-based startup Solar Roadways has recently received a $100,000 grant from the US Department of Transportation (DOT). The company will use the money to build a prototype of its Solar Road Panel, made from solar cells and glass, that is meant to replace petroleum-based asphalt on roads and in parking lots.
The 12- x 12-foot panels, which each cost $6,900, are designed to be embedded into roads. When shined upon, each panel generates an estimated 7.6 kilowatt hours of power each day. If this electricity could be pumped into the grid, the company predicts that a four-lane, one-mile stretch of road with panels could generate enough power for 500 homes. Although it would be expensive, covering the entire US interstate highway system with the panels could theoretically fulfill the country’s total energy needs. The company estimates that this would take 5 billion panels, but could “produce three times more power than we’ve ever used as a nation – almost enough to power the entire world.”
This seems like a good idea but might be a little pricey. I wonder how durable these panels are.
I think there are too many potential problems, first among them maintenance. Most state infrastructure is almost entirely ignored, how long until these panels fail and the states don’t bother fixing them? If you have to clean them and maintain them, I don’t think I’d trust most states to do any of that. Secondly, when a lot of roads are virtual parking lots anyhow, stuck in a perpetual gridlock, the panels aren’t going to get all that much sunlight anyhow, thus very little electricity getting to the grid. Cost, reliability and feasibility all spell failure for this project, which is why I’m sure the DOT will go ahead and fund it. They never met a boondoggle they didn’t like.
Couldn’t you generate more road-illuminating power by having these things a little squishy, so that energy from the weight of vehicles was spinning a little generator pneumatically? Advantage: works at night.
I’ll build a prototype of that for you that is 12 x 12 feet for just $100,000 if you like.
Solar: it’s not just for breakfast, anymore.
The Key to this is the glass… It’s the thing they have spent the least amount of time on. He went to some university and some guys there told him that can make any kind of glass. This is what this whole crazy idea is based on. What happens if I have a rock in my tire? I’m I going to scratch the glass all the way to work? I guess we can’t have gravel roads or drive ways any more.
What If I blow out a tire and my rim hits the glass? How does the road crew patch it? What if it’s a huge truck? Also all LEDs will block light so the panels are going to be even less efficient. Everyone who has even looked in to putting up a solar panel known’s it at least has to face south on an angle. Are we going to outlaw trees next to the solar road because they block too much sun?
Watch the video on the site. It’s crazy in a bad way.
I can’t wait until the video of cars driving over this stuff makes the Failblog
As always I see a bunch of nay sayers spouting off. When I was a kid The USA was a nation of Can-Doers, hell we made it to theh moon. Now everybody’s too worried about paying taxes to remember. Since I don’t live there anymore, it don’t matter to me. Leave all the technological experimentation and development to the europeans and the asians. Later, when all the bugs are worked out, you can buy it from them at an elevated price with your deflated little dollars.
Look for these on Woot Selloff soon!
Now someone please tell me how you stop on wet glass? Good idea, but it just will not work as a road surface.
Reason to be optimistic. Great use of public right of way to generate clean energy and feed the eventual smart energy grid.
Thank you Prez Obama for putting the country back on track to greatness.
Reason to be optimistic. Great use of public right of way to generate clean energy and feed the eventual smart energy grid. Yeah right.
Thank you Prez Obama for putting the country back on track to stupidity.
Apparently the guy who came up with this idea got a hold of Matthew Lesko’s free money books.
This story made me think of the brief time I spent working in the public sector. If ever we got to the end of an accounting period and there was still money left unspent in a budget, management would really flail around looking for anything to spend it on. They sometimes bought the most absurd and inappropriate things.
There are plenty of places to put solar panels where they won’t get constantly run over. If they are not generating energy from the act of the cars running them over why not run them down the side of the roads up in the air.
That would be too easy. The roads here in California are crappy as it is, why would you want to replace a 12 foot section of road that probably costs 50 bucks or so with a $6,900 panel. Both will be destroyed from driving on them.
Idiots!
It seems quite a few Republican quack engineers have converged on this topic for their 2 cents (I’m being generous).
Needless to say, they never read the FAQ, nor done any research yet freely making use of their pie hole to communicate their redesign.
The price point is ridiculous. I love solar power, but this is the wrong application and the wrong solar tech. Too expensive. And roads are among the worst candidates. They’re the dirtiest and most likely to be covered with debris, which would block sunlight from hitting the panels. Stupid idea.
Won’t work in crowded places like LA. With all the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the panels’ area will be COVERED most of the time, and generating mere pittances of juice.
Use them in parking lots? Really?
cool… now roads will be closed for polishing