Are Solar Roadways a thing???

http://m.wimp.com/everythingsolar/

Yea there's an indiegogo campaign going on for them right now. Supposedly the panels are pretty stout. I don't know about roadways but parking lots would make a lot of sense if the panels can hold up to the abuse.

One of the sites I read had a good breakdown of the tech but I can't find the article right now. Wapo has fairly decent blog post about it.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2014/05/20/forget-roofs-are-solar-roads-the-next-big-thing/?tid=pm_national_pop

Wired: http://www.wired.com/2014/05/solar-road/

250000 lbs to break. Not awful.

Wake up. This company is making unsubstainable claims for this product. If any of this were possible don't you think that such panels would be available for your roof, etc? PT Barnum was SO right.

I don't really see the point anyhow. Solar panels are available for all kinds of things. Last time I checked, they aren't exactly making all the rooves of the houses in my neighborhood out of them. Every gas station in America doesn't have them on the roof, etc etc.

The main problem with solar panels is that they are still expensive enough that it takes a decade to make up the initial investment. And I'm betting that these "road" solar panels cost twice/three times as much due to the extra protection they require. So are they good for 20-30 years? Do they get torn up when a snowplow runs down the street, or some dude blows out his tire and runs on the bare rim? And what about grip? Not sure what these are coated with, but it looks like some kind of rubber (?). Seems it would get pretty damn slippery during a rainstorm.

Again, I don't get the whole solar street thing. There's endless open land in this country - thousands of square miles of desert in the southwest. Just coat all that with solar panels that don't need all the reinforcement. PUt them on every roof in the country where they don't have support any weight. The added cost and complexity of making a road out of them just seems dumb.

Btw, if you make a major beltway in a metropolitan area out of them, they'll hardly see the sun anyhow, lol.

I asked a friend that owns a solar power company and he says the cost per watt would be cost prohibitive

The question I've been agonizing over is this: will a burnout still smoke the same way?

(But seriously, some oil spilled on those panels would be just a bit slippery don't ya think?)

This particular company needs to put down the pipe. It ain't gonna play out that way.

The idea has been around for 50 years.

The cells would not survive a year in the most benevolent of our diving climates. Grit and tires would be eating that merde.

Now, a smart person would propose that you cover up the existing roadways, and place something similar on the outside of the tunnel. Now nobody drives over your merdy solar cells and as a bonus you no longer have to salt and plow a bunch of roads.

olpro wrote: Wake up. This company is making unsubstainable claims for this product. If any of this were possible don't you think that such panels would be available for your roof, etc? PT Barnum was SO right.

If it's new technology. Do you have a quantum computer in your house then? I mean it must not be viable if you don't own one.

In reply to irish44j:

All the articles say 22 years to break even. Unless there's some quantum leap in the manufacturing process, there seems to be a claim of just that once a month that never materializes, solar isn't a feasible option because it's so cost prohibitive. I'm all about a good breakthrough and you need to start somewhere but this reeks of vaporware.

You have to admit though a heated road which eliminates plows and salt that you never need to paint lines on and can change up the traffic patterns on on the fly is some scifi E36 M3.

Imagine a huge parking lot covered with these?

You could make a new AutoX course whenever you wanted.

Or make it REALLY challenging and create it on the fly as it's being driven!

Driving on glass sounds like a great way to slip off the road and die.

The0retical wrote: You have to admit though a heated road which eliminates plows and salt that you never need to paint lines on and can change up the traffic patterns on on the fly is some scifi E36 M3.

Yeah until some hackers figure out how to change the road configuration and kill a bunch of people.

Why don't we just worry about regular solar panels? A friend got some recently. Yes, he paid a good amount of money, but he gets a fat tax credit and barely pays for electric. I don't think clean energy-producing roads is something the government needs to worry about at this time.

The0retical wrote: All the articles say 22 years to break even.

Our current road system, while orders of magnitude cheaper will never break even.

22 years seems like a long time but it is makes more financial sense than never.

The0retical wrote: In reply to irish44j: All the articles say 22 years to break even. Unless there's some quantum leap in the manufacturing process, there seems to be a claim of just that once a month that never materializes, solar isn't a feasible option because it's so cost prohibitive.

Regular photo voltaic (PV) panel production has ramped up world wide and prices are coming down rapidly. There are many places in the States where a roof-top PV system will pay for itself in 5 years. Even if the tax credits go away, there are estimates that in 3 to 4 years, the cost of power from PV will be less than the national average for utility delivered power.

I see solar roadways as a distraction from the very real problems of how to adapt a power grid and regulatory framework that was designed move electric power from large centralized generation to many small customers to function with distributed generation from thousands (and potentially millions) of customers adding power to the grid during part of the day and drawing power at others. That is the challenge that is right here right now.

http://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/off-topic-discussion/solar-freakin-roadways/86444/page1/

I already posted my views in here but to me it seems a silly idea.

My driveway will be about 100'x12'. It will be blocked from the sun by a car approximately one gazillionth of an hour a day. The rest of the daylight hours it could be padding my nest egg. Bonus I can program the LEDs to tell my neighbor what I think about his dog barking at 2am.

What I dont get it is the $10k per tile price?!?!? whats the inside of those things made from? Leftover Ferrari parts and JDM cardboard? I think Tesla roadsters are cheaper by the pound, including the fire insurance for your garage. LEDs and the wireless stuff is pretty cheap comparatively. The solar bits may be a bit more pricey, but not that much. Ever heard the phrase "worth its weight in gold"? Well I get the feeling those things arent, despite what theyre pricetag states...

I struggled with how to respond to this. I have spent the last 5 years getting an electrical engineering degree focusing on exactly this subject (renewables, the dumbest name for an energy source ever). I could fill pages explaining it.

Hopefully you guys will accept my opinion as informed: terrible idea for many reasons. Technology is a long ways from making this viable and energy prices will make a million other things a better place to spend valuable recources for the foreseeable future.

And I tellya what, that Musk guys is never gonna find buyers for that silly electric car of his either.

This might not be the answer today, but there are always first steps.

In reply to 4cylndrfury:

This constant "Pay attention to me" campaign is just an attempt to get rich quick off some government agency stupid enough to try it.

Or maybe it's someone - or rather a bunch of someones - excited about a huge scale project.