Solar Roadways - Solar panel on the ... road

• 

  mskeggs on 29/05/2014 - 15:55

  +2

  We have Pv on only 10% of roofs where it is cheap to install. Why would we pay much more to pave streets with panels?

• 

  scrimshaw on 29/05/2014 - 15:58

  +4

  The current Abbott goverment doesn't give a hoot about the environmental issues at the moment. They've axed the climate comission and sacked the people in it. All they're looking at now is profit, money, and increasing taxes.

  Renewable energy takes time to pay off, and the initial investment is also pretty expensive. Not going to happen in a recession period.

• 

  Riczter on 29/05/2014 - 17:20

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlTA3rnpgzU

• 

  ilostnemo on 29/05/2014 - 17:46

  In 5 years, with technology they will have smaller solar panels producing more power, then what. Rip it up, and put the new panels down.

  Good in theory only

  • 

    Settero on 29/05/2014 - 17:54

    not really, you wouldnt want to replace it straight away, you could just replace certain areas at a time , and the panels you are removing can be used to replace broken/damage panels in other areas that are not being updated yet.

    • 

      scrimshaw on 29/05/2014 - 19:33

      +1

      you could just replace certain areas at a time , and the panels you are removing can be used to replace broken/damage panels in other areas that are not being updated yet.

      I don't believe this "panel on the road" is a form factor that is neccessarily the most efficient.

      There is another project called Rawlemon which is a PV system that has a built in sun tracker and a spherical lens (basically an orb filled with water) to focus the light to a single point.

      Apparently this is 70% more efficient than your traditional solar array, and is also cost effective because it reduces the amount of PV material needed as the light is focused onto the array.

      • 

        blitz on 30/05/2014 - 00:14

        Apparently this is 70% more efficient than your traditional solar array, and is also cost effective because it reduces the amount of PV material needed as the light is focused onto the array.

        Do you reckon that the efficiency dividend takes into account the operating cost of the tracker?

• 

  ProspectiveDarkness on 29/05/2014 - 17:57

  +2

  It's an interesting idea, but I wouldn't call it practical. I would consider this a good idea if we didn't have any more prime solar panel real estate remaining (the roof), and this was a way to milk as much efficiency out of our developed land as possible. But as a nation, we barely utilise solar panels as it is - there are much simpler alternative right now. Not to mention all the difficulties you'd have on the road side of things. Roadworks = higher chance of problems arising, and I highly doubt the surface would be as wear-resistant as bitumen is, so you have more cost there in replacing them. I think we'll sooner see photovoltaic windows on office buildings than these.

• 

  nrg2010 on 29/05/2014 - 21:12

  +1

  Solar paint, energy from water, the hydrogen economy,electric cars, levitating cars, England win the world cup, intergenerational ecological equity…………I've got all these on my, That Would Be Nice List.

  Seriously, I think energy efficiency is still the "$50 on the sidewalk," . After all why create the extra generation power, using precious resources to ultimately light up more retail space?

  Our beautiful planet will end up looking like this

  ….queue The Imperial March

• 

  frewer on 03/06/2014 - 04:01

  Perhaps, if the Wright brothers did listen to the critic we wouldn't have airplanes. Surely, there are a lot of obstacles they have to overcome before the idea come to it full potential …

  In all and all the number of backers speak for the idea itself

• 

  rolypoly on 03/06/2014 - 12:21

  +3

  Australia has 353331 km of roads. The cost of current roads is $3,000,000 per km. The total cost to repave all of Australia's roads would be $1 trillion. The Australian GDP is $1.5 trillion. This idea will cost a lot more. Even with economies of scale, the cost of glass, electronics, wiring, photovoltaics and LEDs (and anything else) will cost more per km than the current roads.

  Currently 1 metre squared will produce 150 W of electricity in full sun. In the [Australia] we get about 6 hours equivalent of this per day, this means 900Wh per squared metre. Assuming a lane width of 4m and 4 lanes per road, we get 5 GWh per day or 1857107 GWh per year. Australia uses 1534361 gigawatthours per year currently.

  The Solana Generating Station is $2 billion and produces 944 GWh, 2000 of these would power Australia, at a cost of $3.9 trillion. If the cost of glass and electronics is 2.6 times the price of bitumen (at $7.8 million per km road), this would make them equal. A solar panel for 1000W is 6 metres squared and is $20000 a kilometre of road at this cost would be $48 million (not including glass panels strong enough for a truck and deer sensors and digging and wiring and removing the old road and everything else).

  Glass will be extremely slippery in the wet. Cars constantly driving over it (and with the dirt and dust) will polish the glass smooth and make this problem worse. Glass will have to be replaced much more frequently than bitumen because it is a terrible material mechanically for roads.

  Photovoltaic cells are very inefficient. They compensate for this by pointing them at the sun (the energy cost of moving them is small compared to the advantage gained) and also (and more importantly) by concentrating the light with cheap mirrors so they can get more bang for buck (mirrors are much cheaper than cells). These road cells will not be able to change angle, they will not be able to concentrate any light and they will also be placed anywhere there are roads rather than optimal locations (away from light blocking buildings and trees for example). Parking lots actually being used will be covered by cars in the daylight hours and empty at night.

  Australia is in a pretty sweet location for the implementation of photovoltaics, but this idea is ghastly.

  • 

    blitz on 03/06/2014 - 14:10

    The Professionals