Solar Freaking Roa^H^H^HCycleways

[PlainName]

The bike path that connects the Amsterdam suburbs of Krommenie and Wormerveer is popular with both school children and commuters: around 2,000 cyclists ride its two lanes on an average day.

But next week Krommenie’s cycle path promises to become even more useful: on 12 November a 70-metre stretch will become the world’s first public road with embedded solar panels.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/nov/05/worlds-first-solar-cycle-lane-opening-in-the-netherlands

[Zucca]

Just use the roofs not the streets...  once all the roofs have solar panels, then we can start to talk about the solar f.....ing roads... 

[Artlav]

Costing around €3m (£2.4m) and funded mostly by the local authority
Nonetheless, when the path is extended to 100 metres in 2016, its creators hope that it will produce enough energy to power three households.

So, 1.5 million € per household.
How much would it cost to put the regular panels on the roofs of these households, including lifetime and a 50-100kWh battery pack?
100 000€ if you're in a hurry and don't check the price tags, 10 000€ if you're careful and subsidized.

How come a 100 times more expensive and inferior solution was even considered, much less attempted?

[PlainName]

So, 1.5 million € per household

Don't make the mistake of associating the cost with powering houses. For that money you get a cycleway, which ain't cheap however you cut it, and the power is icing. Or it's expensive power but you get a free cycleway.

I am not in favour or against - I just saw this in the paper and recalled the fuss the roadway thing created. This one is actually being built, so it is not a pig/sky thing everyone was making out it would be.

[SeanB]

Cycleway will be a lot cheaper to make. Here you can build it ( I know the contractor who did a 200m section outside my place) for a shed load less, even if you factor in the extra costs due to the council being a habitual year late payer. 3 million Euro here will get you about 20km of 4 lane dual carriageway, complete with signage, lighting and earthworks and drainage. For the price you could have made a concrete pathway, put up 6m masts and had a rooftop of solar panels over the cycle track, complete with trees, lighting and the massive battery banks needed to make them totally off grid, and also capable of powering the street lighting with LED fixtures and having the traffic signals at the ends with LED signals.

[PlainName]

Perhaps you should've tendered for it

[miguelvp]

I wonder how long until someone posts the picture of the guy in the hard hat standing on one section. Or the guys installing it, Again!

Search is your friend, before posting

[EEVblog]

Supporters have already seen an almost-finished video I've done on this 
Whiteboard tweeted for those playing along at home

[EEVblog]

How come a 100 times more expensive and inferior solution was even considered, much less attempted?

It's a demonstrator prototype, so not designed for cost effectiveness in any away. I believe they have been working on this for a long time, and have spent a lot of R&D dollars on it, so I presume that's been included in this cost.

[PlainName]

Why do people feel...

A rhetorical question, probably, but worth (re)stating that there is an element of jealousy usually involved, coupled with lack of appreciation for how much one-off prototypes (and even production ready) things can cost. Throw in the shock at someone making a living through a profit (spot the employees!)...

But, in the case of the Freaking Solars, I think there is a view that it is obviously not workable if you just think about it a bit, or there are apparently better ways of achieving the same end (a covered normal road would shove the panel above nasty tyres and mud, and provide weather protection to walkers/cyclers, for example). Even if the road provides power to spec and transports people as stated, it won't be a practical solution to what is essentially a non-problem.

I look at these kind of thing much like I do the Mu fiasco: it is entertaining and instructive to see everyone get entrenched with absolutist views, and then hopefully the perps pull one out of the bag just as all seems lost and dish out the humble pie

[Rerouter]

Though if you go adding a roof to cycleways you have the tradeoff of make it too high and the occupant gets wet, while make it too low and the cyclist sues from breaking something when mr tall on his hunched up seat collided with a light fitting,

I still think keep them to roofs where there is an easy connection to mains, or why not make the path lights have a panel that is equivalent to the power they consume over a night + margin, that seems more practical to me even if a battery will always be the limiting factor of these things,

[PlainName]

I can't see anything relying on batteries working, because batteries have a finite life and the sheer number of them required would mean maintenance would be like painting the Forth Bridge. Maybe a very small number of BIG batteries, but then we are talking the distribution architecture that batteries are meant to eliminate.

[Refrigerator]

Wow, it sure seems sunny out there.

[corrado33]

This has been posted on both the car forum I frequent and bike forum I frequent. In both places I posted dave's original solar-roadways video and mentioned a few of the many problems associated with the product. I also mentioned thunderfoot's videos, but he tends to be a bit more grating on people than Dave, so I have to be careful where I post those.  He's done a number of good videos on solar roadways.

[PlainName]

People wouldn't want a covered cycle lane, they like being out in the sun and having a clear view

Perhaps where you live, but around here where it seems to rain more often than not, one of the things that stops people cycling (or sitting in outdoor cafes) is lack of weather protection. Sure, I would love to be out in the sun, but I hate being out in the rain more

[Sigmoid]

Well, in corporate software engineering, it's become increasingly fashionable to test things first, and talk about them later. So, in that spirit, this is a valid experiment.

It will of course turn out to be a total failure, and I guarantee no further cycleways will be solarized, but at least Dutch people can be proud that they have a few meters of this cool futury thing.

[MyCo]

3 Million Euro for 100 meter isn't that bad. We have a 64km highway(Autobahn) that costs 2 BILLION Euro and took 90 years to build it... that's 3.125 Million Euro for 100 meter, and this is just plain black top and won't be used as much as the cycle way in the netherlands either, because it follows an existing road.

[EEVblog]

I also mentioned thunderfoot's videos, but he tends to be a bit more grating on people than Dave, so I have to be careful where I post those.

I challenge that assertion!
I will not be outdone on grating!

[a210210200]

Ugh, look how dirty those solar panel are already. It probably will use more energy to just keep it clean enough to work.