Solar Panels Built Into Roads

[w211e46]

The Department of Energy just gave $100,000 to upstart company Solar Roadways, to develop 12-by-12-foot solar panels, dubbed "Solar Roads," that can be embedded into roads, pumping power into the grid. The panels may also feature LED road warnings and built-in heating elements that could prevent roads from freezing.
Each Solar Road panel can develop around 7.6 kwh of power each day, and each costs around $7,000. If widely adopted, they could realistically wean the US off fossil fuels: a mile-long stretch of four-lane highway could take 500 homes off the grid. If the entire US Interstate system made use of the panels, energy would no longer be a concern for the country.

In addition, every Solar Road panel has its own microprocessor and energy management system, so if one gives out, the rest are not borked. Materials-wise, the top layer is described as translucent and high-strength. Inhabitat says it's glass, which seems odd, especially since Solar Roadways claims the surface provides excellent traction. The base layer under the solar panel routes the power, as well as data utilities (TV, phone, Internet) to homes and power companies.

Still, this is a ways away from actual implementation, seeing as a prototype has yet to be built. But we can be excited, right?

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-08/solar-panels-built-roads-could-be-future-energy

 

[Sal Collaziano]

Very interesting.. VERY expensive, however... I wonder how much money we'll need to borrow from China to make this happen...

 

[ctrcbob]

1. I wonder what kind of traction it has in emergency stops and in curves?

2. I wonder how it will handle the salt that is thrown on the Northern roads in the winter?

3. I wonder how it will handle all the road dirt that settles on the panels, keeping the panels from getting a good amount of sunlight, to charge the system?

The DOE is just throwing away $100,000 of our taxpayer money, IMHO.

 

[MattG]

It's a lovely concept, but I'm always skeptical of solar panel anything.

There is a concept when it comes to energy called EROEI - basically energy return on energy invested. It is similar in concept to the more widely known ROI, or return on investment.

Basically, the idea is that anything that "generates" power also takes power to make. Most solar panels, for instance, are lucky to generate enough power in their lifetimes to supply the energy to make another identical solar panel!

I'm not saying that we should give up on solar, quite to the contrary I think that the sun is a very good source of energy, and one of the few that we can be reasonably confident will be with us for the long haul, but there is a lot of research still needed.

Should the DOE have given out the 100K? I don't know. I think that research grants are an important thing, but I'd like to see more money into basic (IE academic) research, and less into directly funding the business plan of someone who is probably related to someone at the DOE.

 

[GripperDon]

So many problems, so silly, so little money, so on and on. For a 100 grand you can't hardly do a decent feasibility study.