Have we discussed solar roads?
 

I thought we did, but I cannot find it. If someone links the conversation I will commit ritual sudoko--twice!

I believe that members here said that solar roads were stupid, but of course, people always push stupid ideas, like me singing karaoke.

Seriously, no.

Apparently Lloyd Alter on Treehugger.com kept saying that it was a terrible idea, but his readers kept trying to explain it, using increasingly small words, and probably adding "Ya gotta listen to me!"

I do not remember reading that France actually decided to do this, apparently [planning on] paving about a megameter of roads with solar panels, costing 5M € (5.7M USD, $7.5M Canadian--do we have enough currencies? :) )

[Edit! I missed that they specified the test project was 2,800 m², so 1,785.71€ per m²! $189.67 per square foot.]

A "cost of €11,905 (US$ 14,000) per installed [per actual] kW [generated]. (An average rooftop solar system in the US costs $3,140 per installed kW)"

I do not know how French rooftop installations vary from here in the U.S., but that costs 4.46 times as much.

Edit! Source! :D https://www.treehugger.com/solar-tec...-expected.html

It produces 2.28% of the original estimate.

The "300mW big Cestas solar plant near Bordeaux cost a tenth as much per installed kW."

73.3% the capacity for 7.33% the cost?

Readers insist that we need this for induction charging (Which is also stupid).

How would it make more sense to drive over solar panels than run power cables from rooftop solar?

This says that induction charging may be 90% efficient, although the images that I have seen showed chargers sitting on garage floors, not embedded a couple of inches underneath. If your car has 6" of clearance and the charger is 2" tall, that is 10% loss over 4", but how thick are solar roads? If they are only 2" thick and the chargers are immediately underneath, now they are transmitting 8", through a road!

What would be the fine for driving with chains over solar roads? :)

We've talked about this before, or maybe it was painting the roads white, which is probably a slightly less worse idea only because it would waste less money.

Actually, reflecting solar heat back to space seems like a more cost effective means of reducing warming than trying to sequester parts per million CO2 from the air.

I'm not saying PV roads can't be cost effective, but I don't think the odds are favorable.

Seems like a better idea would be putting the solar panels over the roads. Now your roads are protected from bad conditions and you have all that existing real estate... no eminent domain required.

Still more expensive than a solar farm on the ground.

I shared something about Plasti-dipping roads.

I do not understand why solar parking is so scarce here in Arizona, but covered roads would be a different complication. Of course, they would need to be angled, so unless you have one giant piece, it would not necessarily provide shade or protection from rain (or snow).

I am sure this would cost less than solar roads, though, and you would not have semis and cars with radials poking out of tires.

Edit: I missed that they specified the test project was 2,800 m², so 1,785.71€ per m²! $189.67 per square foot. I added this to the original post.

I don't know why solar in general is so scarce in Hades. As I understand it, property taxes are very low in AZ, so improvements such as solar where it's so bright should not suffer a big penalty.

As I've always said, if I were motivated to put solar on my roof in Oregon, I'd instead sponsor an Arizonian. I win due to more solar production, and the Arizonian wins from a lower energy bill.

Yeah they are a waste of time and money.
Talk about it on the dumpster fire known as "the climate change consensus"
I tagged it under "lies" and "scam".

It would be more efficient and durable to put the panels on the car,
Solar roads are very easily damaged and very expensive.

Far better to actually use the used junk tire mixed roads developed in the 1980’s since you would eliminate cracks and extend the roads lifespan, less road construction is less polluting but somebody might not like having lightly used side roads that last a 100 years without disintegration.

I never understood why anyone would even try solar roads. The properties needed don't match.

I like sound screens; they act as wind screens too. Large parts of the A12 have sound screens already and I can see consumption drop when I pass them.

New sound screens are being built on the north bank of the A12 between De Meern and Harmelen. They have solar panels, or rather they are solar panels...

No doubt the solar sound screens are not as cheap as regular sound screens, but the added cost may well be less than what's needed to build the same capacity in regular PV paneling and this way it takes up no extra space at all.

A far better way to combine solar and roads imho.

I figured this would have already been talked about here but I did a few searches using "solar road" as keywords and didn't find anything here.

I'm sure most of you are aware that Jinan, China has already installed a 1km, two lane section of solar highway, totalling 5,875 square meters which can generate up to 1 million kWh/year. The cost if the solar highway came out to $458 per square meter. More info HERE


I saw THIS video a few years back and thought it was an awesome idea, but sadly they just simply are not cost effective. HERE is an article that talks about the issues the company has had with the panels.

After discovering that they weren't cost effective, I started to think, maybe it's due to how thick and durable they have to make them in order to stand up to being driven on by cars/trucks every day. So I looked to see if anyone had installed some solar sidewalks or bike paths. Turns out they have... Score 1 for the Netherlands, who built a 230ft solar bicycle path. The solar bicycle path did turned out to be much more cost effective than the solar roads but when compared to ground or roof mounted arrays there's simply no contest. The solar bicycle path ($3.7 million) was only able generate 3,000kWh (which is more than they expected) in it's first 6 months, while the same amount of money could have purchased 520,000 kWh of ground mounted solar. For some reason they have called it a success and have expanded the pathway since it's original construction. A little more info HERE

As much as I love my solar panels, I think for road use we're probably better off with vertical axis wind turbines, like THIS. Although those have their own set of problems due to having moving parts.

The thing is, if the solar roads cause even 1% more rolling resistance, the energy production is more than offset by the loss in vehicle efficiency.

Generally speaking, trying to achieve 2 vastly different goals in 1 product results in both goals being suboptimally met.