Are Solar Roads the Way of the Future?

I just can't imagine these things being cost effective as they would have to be designed to withstand the rigors of heavy truck traffic (let alone all the other challenges like year round weather traction).

Just looking at the grooves cut into our roads from trucks, precisely how it happens I do not know, it would be a constant effort to replace panels.

Similar problems will be had for states that use snow plows.

Given the cost to ruggedize panels for the road it seems impossible to believe it can be anything close to cost effective given we can't even afford the standard panels available for roof top installation.

All great points, Anonymous Hero. The FAQs do talk about traction on wet surfaces, but snow and ice (not rainfall) are generally greater concerns in northern climates. The company's video claims that the panels will be heated to melt ice and snow, but how well will this work when snow falls at the rate of several inches per hour? And what about ice storms like the ones we get here in Quebec? These are some of the questions that we're asking. If the panels don't perform as promised, it's possible that the edge of a snowplow could "snag" a solar panel. Salting and sanding the glass could degrade its material properties over time, too.
Snow and ice removal also gets at the matter of cost. How much of the electricity that is generated will need to go back into heating the roadways themselves? And in places like where you live, the Space Coast, how well will conduits under solar roadways handle the "runoff" from tropical storms - even hurricanes. Your point about truck traffic is well-taken, too. If solar panels are more durable than asphalt, road crews from Montreal to Florida (and beyond) would need to be convinced.
Perhaps the best use of these panels is in parks, sidewalks, and parking lots that are restricted only to cars. There may also be some applications in places such as Phoenix or Southern California. Looking forward to our continued discussion.

Well I think to get the proper perspective here, we would have to look at the current cost of roads and their maintenance as they exist today...Let's face it we use the cheapest materials we could find, and the government subsidizes most of the road building that goes on....even with all this we can not keep pace with the needs or maintenance required....to add exotic materials and special expertise, for purpose designed and built machines, added infrastructure.....well I just don't see this as a viable path, but a fiasco that would waste tons of money, and end badly.....

"According to the 2013 report, actually improving the nation's highways and bridges to meet strategic economic and safety goals would require a total annual investment of $145.9 billion in constant 2010 dollars over 20 years."

"A 2012 study by the Texas Transportation Institute found traffic congestion due to inadequate capacity introduces billions of hours of delay on the Interstate Highway System and other principal arterials, compared to uncongested conditions, adding billions in costs to interstate commerce. According to the study, congestion in the nation's 498 largest urban areas costs motorists $121 billion annually in wasted time and motor fuel. The Federal Highway Administration reported 50 percent of urban Interstate mileage is congested during peak travel hours."

"After housing (33.8 percent), transportation (almost 17 percent) accounts for the largest single household expenditure. According to U.S. DOT, highways in poor condition cost users as much as 25-30 percent more per mile than highways in good condition. And every one percent increase in highway user costs adds about $15 billion to the nation's total highway bill, including increased vehicle depreciation and maintenance, fuel, oil, and tire consumption."

.....and you propose to start a multi-billion dollar project of construction to these streets with an unproven system....I don't think so......

Rooftop installations would seem to be the cheapest and most efficient way to utilize solar power, how many of these programs have we seen over the years? I don't see any of them being touted as highly successful, or for that matter even marginally effective...only as a further source of controversy about mismanagement of funds and fraud....

http://www.artba.org/government-affairs/policy-statements/highways-policy/

Thanks for the analysis and references, SolarEagle. Are you familiar with efforts to harvest "solar heat" from asphalt roadways? I've been doing some more research, and came across this article from 2010.
http://www.gizmag.com/harvesting-solar-heat-asphalt/16904/

I'd be interested to hear what you think of it.

I don't see that this makes any sense at all....They talk about pavement temperatures in the hot summer sun being used to melt the ice off of roads in the winter time...If the pavement got that hot in the winter time wouldn't that melt the ice?...but hello, the sun is not at the same angle and does not produce the same intensity...Water pipes under the pavement? I mean really, this is ridiculous...for all the same reasons stated above....What are you going to do when the pipes start to leak?... Look, any plan that involves tearing up the pavement, is a non-starter from the git-go.....Now if you could make highway materials cheaper and more resilient and last longer,,well then you would have something...

It's unnerving to me that as a solar professional who has spent the last ten years building, training, marketing a commercial solar company, focused on finding maximum cost effectiveness for any alternative energy scheme, with an emphasis on structure and HVAC efficiency as the primary opportunity for this country to make energy demand reduction a viable reality, that we are actually still discussing this idea. It has no legs.

It defies logic...

Flying cat

Isn't that a buttered cat?

<face palm>

I have been following designs like this for a few years. The biggest question of all is still unanswered.........

How much will your panels cost?

We are not yet able to give numbers on cost. We are still in the midst of our Phase II contract with the Federal Highway Administration and we'll be analyzing our prototype costs near the end of our contract which ends in July, 2014. Afterward, we'll be able to do a production-style cost analysis.

Given the current (and even near future) solar technologies and the fundamental way solar panels and the power distribution system works this product is fundamentally flawed beyond belief.

The costs (for example) are going to be astronomical and the actual output far, far lower than advertised due to the fact that the panels will be covered in cars, shaded by structures (such as buildings, parked vehicles, etc) and dirty (pollution, snow, sand, etc). Plastering thin film solar panels over all the cars makes more sense than this.

And you can take it from someone who both works in the power transmission, distribution, the solar industry and power product R&D. This is not a well thought out idea.

..........

What are all of the different applications for your panels?

Besides roads, our panels can be used for parking lots, driveways, sidewalks, bike paths, patios/decks, playgrounds, tarmacs, amusement parks, sport courts, walkways, pool surrounds, stadiums/arenas... basically any outdoor surface that can be walked or driven upon. Finally, they can be used in disaster relief: lowered down by helicopter after earthquakes etc. to provide needed power and light.

They are not in the real world.

:(

More great insights. Thank you, jack of all trades. The problem of shading due to buildings and cars isn't one that I had considered. Plus, unless the solar panels can handle these conditions, they'd be a poor choice for partially-enclosed parking garages.
Have you done any work with putting thin film solar panels on cars? Because of the industry that I'm in, I'd like to know if these panels might have any rubber or plastic components.

Have you done any work with putting thin film solar panels on cars?

No but I have done research in the past and am trying to keep up with current technological advances in solar technology including inorganic thin film solar and organic (plastic) solar panels on cars.

The short answer is it is definitely a possible way and we should not be surprised when we see it become standard on electric cars, busses, trains, buildings, etc but the biggest problem currently is that you get too little power for the surface area of the vehicle.

Don't expect to be able to charge your electric car during the day by leaving it in the sun just yet with any of the current solar technologies (or products) currently available. Think more charging up your phone or laptop plugged into the cigarette lighter.

With decades of development however these thin film or organic solar panels with their relatively low efficiency but low manufacturing cost and weight products are going to be the 'Google' or even 'Microsoft' of solar power products. Existing silicon solar panels on the other hand are the 'AOL' or 'Enron' of solar products and should be treated as such (higher efficiencies but massive production and energy costs to produce). Good case study material and product development experience but they aren't the answer to our energy needs.

;)

If humans were meant to fly...

This is an idea that must be explored, and I hope they end up unbelievably rich due to eventual success. If not roadways, then parking lots are great candidates. Barring even that, tar rooftops will be worth replacing.

"Barring even that, tar rooftops will be worth replacing."

Not to be Captain Obvious, but isn't that where they're putting photovoltaic panels now, on top of roofs?

Grit, oil and rubber. A build up standard road debris would render the panels inefficient at best and possibly useless. Along with all the other costs, add in the price of a massive fleet of road washing vehicles.

That's spot on. This company just wants to suck on the govt teat because the shortcomings are so obvious this could never be considered a going concern unless you paved the dessert.

could never be considered a going concern unless you paved the dessert.

Then run into the same problems you have with a de-centralised grid - you have to transmit the DC voltage long distances which results in increased infrastructure costs and transmission losses.

That and the panels on the road will get covered in sand (or whipped topping).

;)

An absolutley ridiculous concept. Equivalent to suggesting that roads should be canals and we should all commute in boats. Feasibility and cost/benefit analysis should kill this idea easily, but I've seen it several times in the last few months. Now let's consider solar on a roof as a contrasting idea. Elevation, check. Protection from most debris and wear, check. premanufactured structural mounting surface, check. production at point of demand, check. pre-existing grid connection, check. I'm going out on a limb on this one. Cost of equipment to produce 1KWh per day of energy. Advantage roof mount. Approximatly 1 in 10,000 ideal roofs is currently exploited.

You wrote, "I'm going out on a limb on this one."

Ah Ha! You must be a squirrel. You have got some nuts to say that. I have seen what squirrels do and that must be 10X more destructive than 18-Wheelers.

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once it a while. I don't think they've found a nut with this one.

'Twould be far cheaper and more effective to enclose roads using solar panels. That would eliminate the wear issue, protect the road from snow, etc.

Aside from the cost of roadbed preparation-look at just the cost of placement of just the surface, concrete or asphalt per sq/ft. Currently underfunded, and the maintenance there of, also underfunded. Can the cost ever be equal to what we currently use? I think NOT. The fact that 'Indiegogo' raised 196% of goal for this project shows how STUPID our fellow voters are. This will probably become another Solyndra. I have been asking these questions for 6 mos. and am still waiting for intelligent discussion from many websites. It is just a 'feelgood' proposal from the younger generation that shows you where we're headed---crowds do stupid things!

Picture the ubiquitous metal ladder gracefully twirling through the ether after separating from the house painter's raggedy old pickup doing 60 mph around the city's circumferential Interstate. Picture one corner of one rung impacting that single solar panel. How will the panel withstand the impact? What will be the effect on surrounding panels? Will this be the beginning of a solar panel "pot hole" that will grow and grow because it's scheduled to be repaired 3 months from now, presuming that anybody even knows it's damaged.

Multiply this scenario by thousands and thousands of similar incidents.

Dang, we can't even repair asphalt damage in a timely fashion with hot patch. I don't think there's a solar panel hot patch equivalent.

Questions, questions and even more questions...

Repairs will be done at night, when there is no voltage. :-)

Turn off the street lights too.

My brother-in-law has a saying for scenarios like this:

"Great idea, but the practical application sucks".

Application sucks indeed. Perhaps, they could be made to be integrated structurally into the sides of buildings ??

Structural building components? For Net Zero Energy buildings perhaps? At Concordia University, the John Molson School of Business has an LEED-certified building with a Solar Wall that covers 300 square meters. These PV panels generate up to 25 kW of electricity and up to 75 kW of heat. To put it in perspective, that's enough electricity for 1,250 CFL light bulbs and enough heat for 7 Canadian homes. If the panels from Solar Roadways can do better, the company could make its case to green builders like this.
Another potential application is in rugged, remote environments (such as military theaters) where getting replacement solar panels isn't easy. Here, I'm thinking of a company such as ZeroBase as a potential buyer. (There are probably others, too.)

You wrote, "...If the panels from Solar Roadways can do better..."

That seems a physical impossibility. Any road surface PV cell is subject to the same physical efficiency limitations as any other PV cell.

I can see no way that a road sensor's transparent coating could possibly reach parity to a roof top panel, let alone maintain that same level of transparency.

As far as zero energy buildings go, I would love to do that with my home, but there is no way I could afford the system, even if I DIY.

These ideas, while laudable, seem to remind me of all the visions of the future in rags like Popular Science. Interesting to read as a child, but virtually none of those predictions ever materialized because they were never grounded in reality.

As I pointed out in post #4, panel cost has not been mentioned at all and when you start multiplying it by thousands to cover a road surface people are very quickly going to lose interest, regardless of its features or passed road surface tests.

Lets all consider a real world example of say paving a single street in hundreds or thousands of solar panels at the cost of, for example, $1,000,000 (just for the panels, say for example 2500 panels at $400 each). Then add labour, connection infrastructure, possible energy storage, maintenance, etc, so perhaps another $1,000,000 (probably more!). Throw in a government subsidy that takes (say) $500,000 from your taxes to drop the cost, you could be looking at $1,500,000 a street.

Now consider the payback period compared to other green alternatives.

Hmmmmmm.

I would be very interested to find out just how cheap they can produce these and more detailed plans for their infrastructure connection. These key details will make or break this product in a real world application. It won't be replacing roads but there may be alternative uses, especially with advances in solar technologies......

All I can say is, the product isn't viable with the current technology and how it is being marketed but I hope they have the concept thoroughly patented because that could be where the real money is when technology progresses to a point (and perhaps a new market opens) making this product potentially viable.

:)

Thank you, jack of all trades, for answering my question.
The conversation surrounding this thread has been fantastic. I agree that we need to be skeptical about Solar Roadways - though perhaps with less cynicism. Yes, there have been many incorrect predictions when it comes to technology. There are plenty of hucksters out there, of course, there's a sucker's born every minute (as P.T. Barnum once said). But incorrect predictions like these are also amusing.

I cannot imagine the cost of 31000 square miles of solar cells, much less solar cells you can drive a truck over. You might get as much energy by running pipes under the blacktop to heat water in the summertime.

Pave all highways with solar cells? Are you kidding? Why would you put solar cells where vehicles drive across them?

Because no one could get the marketeers that thought up that idea to lay themselves down on that same road.

Why would you put solar cells where vehicles drive across them?

For the same reasons you would market them for paving car parks.

Still, I suppose that is less of a problem at night when the car parks are empty.....oh, wait...

No.