Then of course there are the 5 people who paid $10,000 to get:
7-inch Glass Hexagon
For your donation, we'll send you a 7-inch hexagon containing the same textured surface as our full-sized Solar Road Panels (top and bottom layers). This will be a small working model, including solar cells, LEDs, and a microprocessor. Individually numbered, limited edition.
Wow - solar cells, LEDs and even a microprocessor!
36-watt (assume is watt/hour) per panel currently so how long will it take to pay for itself?
so $10000 / 36 = $278 per Watt/h
Let's take the Pacific non continuous islands at $28.74 per kilowatt. or $0.02874 per watt.
So it will pay itself in 9673 hours (of sunlight that is) let's be optimistic and give them 8 hours a day. We are at 1,209.125 days. So 3 years 4 months without maintenance.
Of course average in the US per kilowatt is $12.26 and maybe they get 4 hours so that will be four times that long average 13 years more or less.
The good thing is that the normal production will be way less than $10K per block, that's just as a limited edition memento, glass plus all those parts should be way less, but you will have to add the infrastructure cost.
But all the money goes to them to complete their contract, right? so it's all donated money.
They also mention that they can make money by other means:
How can a Solar Roadway pay for itself? How can it generate revenue?
. Through the generation of electricity
. By transporting cleaned stormwater to municipalities or agricultural centers
. By leasing the roadside conduit (Cable Corridor) to entities such as utility companies, telephone, high-speed internet, cable TV, etc
. By selling advertising in parking lots with the configurable LEDs
. By charging people or companies to recharge their electric vehicles
. There's probably several more ways we haven't even thought of!
Also on the stealing:
These panels must be valuable. What's to keep people from stealing them for home use?
Each panel has its own microprocessor, which communicates wirelessly with the surrounding panels. They monitor each other for malfunctions or problems. Even if someone were able to pull a panel out of the road and load it on a truck, the stolen panel would continue communicating with all of the other panels in the road. The road would know exactly where it was and how fast it was moving, making the criminal a sitting duck for law enforcement.
People will surely try however, and we'll probably be treated to several "World's Dumbest Criminal" episodes before the thieves finally decide it's not worth it!
I guess they don't know how clever people can get, faraday cage and you got your memento (not encouraging anyone to do so). Or off road.
They better put security cameras
Edit: Source: their FAQ
http://solarroadways.com/faq.shtmlNow let's see what happens.