Solar Roadway Schadenfreude

[salfter]

Dave might appreciate this:

http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/29/first-solar-freakin-roadway-in-the-us-breaks-again/

A prototype solar road in Idaho is broken again only a few weeks after it caught on fire.

Dubbed “Solar FREAKIN’ Roadways,” the project has received $3.9 million in funding and been in development for 6.5 years, but is still plagued by major problems.

[...]

Earlier this month, screenshots taken from the roadway’s official webcam show the electrical box that controls the panels catching fire and smoking. Firefighters soon showed up to the scene, prompting the solar project’s official webcam to issue an update: “The Solar Roadways electrical system is currently undergoing maintenance. Please check back late next week.”

Despite massive internet hype, the prototype of the solar “road” can’t be driven on, hasn’t generate any electricity and 75 percent of the panels were broken before they were even installed. Of the panels installed to make a “solar footpath,” 18 of the 30 were dead on arrival due to a manufacturing failure. A short rain shower caused another four panels to fail, and only five panels appear to be presently functional. The prototype appears to be plagued by drainage issues, poor manufacturing controls and fundamental design flaws.

[kallisti5]

Just noticed they put live numbers up: https://enlighten.enphaseenergy.com/pv/public_systems/V3vh1173801/overview

[AndyC_772]

"0.00 kilowatt-hours produced", it says.

At least one part of the system is working fine, then.

[PA0PBZ]

"0.00 kilowatt-hours produced", it says.

Probably because it is still dark there. (note that the data is for one day)

[CatalinaWOW]

3.9 million dollars invested.  0.5 kWH generated today.  Be generous and say that the average daily production is 4 kWH.  At current electrical rates in the US that is well under a dollar a day of production.  If these boogers somehow last 20 years they will have produced much less than $7300 dollars of electricity.  A payback of about 2 millicents on the dollar. 

Who couldn't love this?

[james_s]

What I'd like to know is how it cost $3.9 Million to develop. It's a bunch of off the shelf parts assembled together, looks like the sort of thing one guy could build in his garage in a year or less.

[Dubbie]

I could probably cobble this together with about 20k of parts and 3 months of time. Might even be able to beat their "1 nines" reliability. (19%)