France Plans To Build Hundreds of Miles of Solar-Paved Roads
Source: Global Construction Review
France’s minister of ecology and energy, Ségolène Royal, has announced that the government intends to build over 600 hundreds of miles of solar-paved roads, which will be able to provide power for 5 million people , or up to 8% of the French population. Construction will take place over the next five years, using Wattway panel from Colas (the manufacturer of the panels).These panels require about 215-square-feet of surface area to generate enough electricity to power a home. According to the manufacturer, a 1-kilometer (0.6 miles) segment of the surface can generate enough power for a town of 5,000 people.
The surface is about 7mm thick, or about a quarter-inch, and has photovoltaic cells arranged like tiles in a polycrystalline silicon layer that is applied directly to the road. They act much like regular road, and they are strong enough for trucks. Drivers will not easily skid when they brake while driving on them. Testing on the solar-panel road surface is expected to begin in the spring. Ms Royal has proposed to pay for improvements in France’s transport infrastructure by raising taxes on petrol. She estimates that this could contribute between 200 and 300 million euros ($220–440m) to the cost of improvement such as road solarising.
There are still some questions there. What is the cost of the solar road surface? How will it stand up to inclement weather? How long will it last until stretches of road need to be replaced? Not even looking at the costs, as an engineer, I think roads are the worst form factor. Sidewalks and medians make a lot a sense. Medians are wasted space and the panels can be designed to occasionally take the load of an odd car. Sidewalks is better than roads, because the load condition on sidewalk is much lower, and also the service factor.
Reference:
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3056394/france-plans-to-build-hundreds-of-miles-of-solar-paved-roads
