I can just see Dave when he sees this....
Dave, you'll love this.
France to pave 1000km of roads with solar panels
"...sanctioned by France's Agency of Environment and Energy Management". Somehow, I thought so.
Comment below that article "Covering every roof on the planet with solar panels will never produce enough electricity to meet demand... but covering the roads, driveways, and
parking lots WILL." My italics - during the day the parking lot will be covered in cars and so the solar panels will not be covered at just the peak daylight! Never mind, the floodlights will provide the energy at night when there are no cars!
Dave, you'll love this.
France to pave 1000km of roads with solar panels
"...sanctioned by France's Agency of Environment and Energy Management". Somehow, I thought so.
Came here to post this link, but you beat me to it.
This is politics at it's "best", not engineering at it's best.
Wait, are they also seriously promoting using them in parking lots? Well, I suppose if it is a business only open at night... or a not too successful business. I can tell you at my office there is not a single open parking space most days of the week. Only places that would be generating power during the peak daylight hours would be the travel lanes between rows. Now, as a business park, there are very few cars there on weekends, so weekend potential is good - but shopping areas and other consumer locations that are open 7 days a week? I suppose the same could be said of the actual roadways themselves, if its in one of those areas that sees multiple lanes of bumper to bumper traffic that barely moves most hours of the day, that has to hurt the potential power generated.
All that is probably beside the point, wonder how flexible this stuff is. 7mm on top of the existing road surface, and they claim it can withstand even heavy truck traffic? When I see the holes blasted in the road surface and even worse, the washboard surface created by heavy trucks, I really have to wonder what happens to this 7mm layer as it gets bent repeatedly. Maybe this is less of an issue in other countries of they don't allow as heavy a truck on the roads, but it would be a major problem I think if they tried this in the US.
I hope this works. Not because I want to see the solar power, but if they have found a material that really can resist traffic damage it can be used to replace the concrete, asphalt and other materials currently in use that don't stand up to traffic.
Would never get used in my state - they deliberately use subpar material so they have a never ending job stream repairing the roads. And then blame it on the fact that we can have extreme weather and it's all the freeze/thaw cycle that causes the problems. Yet other states that have just as much or worse variations in weather through the year have better quality roads. Here, they'd be replacing the panels ever couple of years because they wouldn't be installed properly and would quickly become too damaged to produce much power.
I came here to post the link but you were quicker. So I will just apologize for my country
Damn you politicians! First they approve funding for a "sovereign cloud" which cost a lot and failed, then we got the idea of a "sovereign operating system" and finally they started talking about changing the azerty keyboard layout because it's too close to qwerty. Can this get any more ridiculous ?
Some colleagues suggested those ideas come from jokes like this:
Dave, you'll love this.
France to pave 1000km of roads with solar panels
"...sanctioned by France's Agency of Environment and Energy Management". Somehow, I thought so.
Came here to post this link, but you beat me to it.
This is politics at it's "best", not engineering at it's best.
Same here...
But from what I understand this is for parkings and such, not REAL roads. And the journalist ran with it and started extrapolating to ALL roads.
This system is also simply a cover on existing surface, it does not claim to replace roads.
Never mind, the floodlights will provide the energy at night when there are no cars!
Cool, "recycling" some unused photons
great idea, there's a lot of potential government money potential right here !
Infinite energy! After the first day where the sun charges the batteries to run the floodlights, which then recharge the batteries overnight - the next day, you add the sun's energy, and it keeps getting bigger and bigger! All our problems are solved! The longer it runs, the more power it produces. Eventually a couple of square meters will be enough to power the world!
At a high level, before you really start to think about all the issues, it sounds like a really AWESOME idea. That's why it attracts all sorts of attention. But as soon as you start considering those pesky little engineering factors, it just falls flat. Politicians don't understand engineering, but they sure understand a segment of their constituency demanding more "green energy" so they are only too eager to dump money into these boondoggles. It won't ever stop - no matter how many failures, some other country will be the next to invest in this crazy idea. Maybe someday someone will do the right kind of R&D and work on a different material that CAN stand up to heavy truck traffic, instead of this repackaging of existing materials. Hey, we can hope...
At a high level, before you really start to think about all the issues, it sounds like a really AWESOME idea. That's why it attracts all sorts of attention. But as soon as you start considering those pesky little engineering factors, it just falls flat. Politicians don't understand engineering, but they sure understand a segment of their constituency demanding more "green energy" so they are only too eager to dump money into these boondoggles. It won't ever stop - no matter how many failures, some other country will be the next to invest in this crazy idea. Maybe someday someone will do the right kind of R&D and work on a different material that CAN stand up to heavy truck traffic, instead of this repackaging of existing materials. Hey, we can hope...
And telling people buying this burgeoning snake oil trade that putting a 1m2 well orientated panel on every street lamp is far more effective/value for money would probably land you in the boring bin...
Otherwise smart people are hell bent on the solar roads like ponzy scheme victims when times are still good...
Not sure if I should post here, but "SolaRoad [in Netherlands] will be extended"
Original
http://www.installatiejournaal.nl/artikel/1648746-solaroad-wordt-verlengdTranslation (Google, sorry I am lazy)
Solar Cycle track SolaRoad is extended by twenty meters. The extension of the bike path is part of a three-year pilot.
SolaRoad is a bike path land the N203 in Krommenie which was provided with the first solar panels in 2014. Cyclists ride on prefabricated pavement panels with tempered glass surface. Beneath the glass are solar cells made of silicon.
renewal cycle
In extending the bike path Solar panels are used which are better equipped for use in a road surface. For example, the panels do not have glass topsheet more. Also, some of the elements are provided with thin film solar cells. There micro inverters from Eindhoven Autarco is applied.
Sola Road is being developed by a consortium of TNO, the province of North Holland, Ooms Civil and Dynnic.
By 20 whole meters, you say? At this rate, they may have a kilometer of solar bikeway by 2100.
Fellow nerds,
You have to be very strong now:
Grabbing some VC with solar-<something> will still be a big thing:
And here is the proof:
Solar- electric car!!!
https://www.sonomotors.com/ Who was stupid enough to not put the cells on the car before. All the energy lost caused by the shaddow of that car on the solar roadway?
And my favorite till now:
Mr "grab em by the pussy" President Tump had a great idea:
The Solar Wall to Mexico
Max
Trump
He'd better install them on the USA's side of the wall - in case the Mexicans steal them.
They could of built more than 3 houses and put solar panels on all of them for 4.million euros.
Surprise factor: Zero.
It surprised me. I didn't expect they would have a glass top sheet that's so weak that it has broken up this fast with just pedestrian and cyclist traffic.
It surprised me. I didn't expect they would have a glass top sheet that's so weak that it has broken up this fast with just pedestrian and cyclist traffic.
And its so dirty and scratched its totally useless. Doesn't look like its bonded to the panel worth a crap. Water gets in shorts things out, freeze/expand and more of it flakes off... Epic fail!