EEVBlog: Are solar roadways BS?

[juretrn]

So let's get one thing straight first: no one is saying that this is a scam. It is not. People behind this concept truly believe into their concept. However, one question arises: have they really thought this through properly? Can it work?

Dave from EEVBlog does some basic calculations regarding the power generated and how much it gets used. In the end he tries to figure out if the roadway tiles really pay for themselves.

 

First concerns are such: is the load bearing capacity truly sufficient? The example in the video, a tractor, is completely inadequate. That tractor barely weighs over 1 ton, not even close to most modern CARS, what even a large truck. Imagine a fully laden truck (40 tons) driving over these. Remember, even motorways start cracking under the weight of trucks, and that is 20 cm of asphalt on more than 50 cm of concrete.  

Another concern is grip. They might claim grip is just fine and the surface has passed certain tests, but at the same time, they do not provide ANY real data. There is also no data regarding the wearing of the glass surface.

 

Now for the big thing: electrical efficiency etc.

These solar panels would even in the best case (if they used the best panels on the market, and those are quite expensive) produce less than 400 Wh/m2, and just having 3 lines show on the road (the 2 side lines and the middle one) would easily use ¼ of all the energy produced anyway. Not to mention that LED visibility sucks in direct sunlight and the far from optimal typical viewing angles from a car…

Now if you wanted to heat these things during the winter…

 

And even if you did produce some extra power, you would not be able to store that power for the night! The electrical grid does not do that! Therefore, the roads would have to be powered FROM the grid during the night.

 

The last concern is the price. There are no data regarding the durability of these things. Complex electronics hates extreme conditions. And when one of these tiles would have to be replaced, it would likely cost far more than the electricity it produced. Therefore, solar roadways would be MUCH more expensive than the current ones. Unfortunately for us, we would need far better technology than what we have now to make this feasible.

 

Here is the video:

[Askew]

Cost renders it unfeasible IMO.

[Enderman]

It seems infeasible now, but in 10-20 years new technology will exist that allows us to do this. It's just a matter of time, we will obviously not see any of these roadways any time soon.

[Volbet]

I can also recommend Tunderf00t's videos on the subject

Solar roadways just aren't possible right now, and I doubt they will ever possible, since there are better options for both roadways and solar power. 

[juretrn]

I can also recommend Tunderf00t's videos on the subject

Solar roadways just aren't possible right now, and I doubt they will ever possible, since there are better options for both roadways and solar power. 

I know, Dave mentioned them.

[Misanthrope]

I think Logan had this right when debating with Wendell on this: Wendell saw the same kind of overall problems, particularly the transmission of power. Logan suggested that this could be great for small communities around suburbs everywhere where you can just not let trucks come in and such and the power requirements of a lower density residential zone could benefit from the panels also cutting down on the transmission issues.

 

Now I know that this just isn't viable for us city folk but if I had this sort of infrastructure on the countryside I'd consider moving.

[deviant88]

I cant believe people would actually believe this is even doable,even if these road glass panels would have no electrics in side it would cost infinite more to make 1 mile than good old asphalt.

 

Whats wrong with you people cant you use logic anymore??

 

Even with asphalt it costs billions to make long roads,so i guess this tech would have been a good a idea for inside cities,still their only benefit would be heating and melting snow reduce road maintenace cost but logically its imposible to heat such a big surface to melt snow at -10/20/30 Celsius,in a blizzard they cant produce Watts since the sun is blocked so they need insane ammount of power from the grid to melt snow.Well ive got news for ya untill them mad scientists announce the Fusion reactors they keep working on are feasable and we enter a new electricity era with almost free power any kind of this road is idiotic.

 

I would stop posting/talking about it its just plain stupid and childish idea.

[ijKs Snow]

Let's wait for mass graphene farming first. Then we can talk about solar panels hitting the next steps.

[juretrn]

Even 100% efficiency of solar panels would have had a hard time providing enough power to heat the road. What we need is making these for less than 20$ apiece...

[matin94]

they need it to run for like 10 years but after that, thats when they'll start to benefit from it in terms of efficiency

[Benbass]

I love how he lost his cool at the end.

 

Moral of the story: nobody is going to have solar roadways, scammer's got $2M with indigogo.

[LAwLz]

I think Logan had this right when debating with Wendell on this: Wendell saw the same kind of overall problems, particularly the transmission of power. Logan suggested that this could be great for small communities around suburbs everywhere where you can just not let trucks come in and such and the power requirements of a lower density residential zone could benefit from the panels also cutting down on the transmission issues.

 

Now I know that this just isn't viable for us city folk but if I had this sort of infrastructure on the countryside I'd consider moving.

But even then you got the issues that LEDs are pretty much invisible in day light from a sharp angles, the solar panels doesn't generate enough energy, it costs far more, they will wear out far quicker and we don't know how much traction they give.

It's just an incredibly stupid idea overall.

 

 

they need it to run for like 10 years but after that, thats when they'll start to benefit from it in terms of efficiency

No, they will WASTE energy for every year. They use more power than they generate.

[Mooshi]

But even then you got the issues that LEDs are pretty much invisible in day light from a sharp angles, the solar panels doesn't generate enough energy, it costs far more, they will wear out far quicker and we don't know how much traction they give.

It's just an incredibly stupid idea overall.

 

 

No, they will WASTE energy for every year. They use more power than they generate.

 

Sounds like the BS with the US government subsidizing corn farmers for corn based ethanol..which was also a stupid idea that wasted more energy than it generated. 

[juretrn]

Sounds like the BS with the US government subsidizing corn farmers for corn based ethanol..which was also a stupid idea that wasted more energy than it generated. 

Ha, great way to waste huge tracts of land to make pointless fuel.

You know what's even worse? Biodiesel. The damn thing is useless! Since our family  bussiness is selling farming machinery, especially tractors, I can tell you what happenned when farmers tried to use it: it ruined fuel pumps and completely clogged up fuel filters. Whole common rail systems had to be replaced. Soooo much damage caused.

[mr moose]

I would have thought you didn't need to do the math to know there is a lot more unimpeded roof space in built up areas than road surface.

 

 

Unfortunately a lot of these so called green energies are fully supported by idealistic environmentalists (lobby groups) who don't understand the science.  These lobby groups have a lot of power in the media and the end result is usually that anyone who who questions the legitimacy of such technologies gets shouted down as an environmental vandal.  This really dissuades anyone from trying to develop proper green technologies and trying to save us from wasting money on tech that won't improve our environment.

 

 

 

Ha, great way to waste huge tracts of land to make pointless fuel.

You know what's even worse? Biodiesel. The damn thing is useless! Since our family  bussiness is selling farming machinery, especially tractors, I can tell you what happenned when farmers tried to use it: it ruined fuel pumps and completely clogged up fuel filters. Whole common rail systems had to be replaced. Soooo much damage caused.

 

There are buses in our area that are running on biodiesel and they haven't had any problems yet.  Before dismissing it completely find out if the local biodiesel company is actually filtering it properly or if they have done the dodgy on everyone.

 

As for ethanol in cars, I think the debate is still legit and the jury hasn't come in yet.  Back in the 60/70's hot rodders used to put metho in their tanks to absorsb the water and boost octane rating of the fuel, they never had any off the issue purported to be a result of ethanol so Until some hard scientific evidence comes in I will sit on the fence.

[techswede]

yes

did not even have to read it

called it a looooong time ago

 

bye bye 

[NInety]

I think that these would be fine as driveways but not roads.

[wpirobotbuilder]

Ha, great way to waste huge tracts of land to make pointless fuel.

You know what's worse than that? Eating meat. Right now eating less meat is the most cost-effective way to save energy (one of many sources). Nearly half of the food grown in the world is used to feed other food.

 

I think solar roadways are a cool idea and the technology behind them should be developed further. But they're not cost-effective right now, and there are better ways to 'go green'.

[LePawel]

If you factor in stuff like turning off when no vehicles are around (it's supposed to be a network, and you could use typical game LOD-like algorythms to handle it), making them fucking rectangular like everything else in tech world is (higher coverage per tile).

A few more other optimizations like master/slave tiling with only every xth actually having control modules for LEDs (which the EEVblog didn't even mention when it comes to power consumption, but on the other hand we have Intel Atoms) you could probably increase the efficiency by good 30%+, but it's still not enough to power a country.

Until we get some amazing breakthrough in solar tech with ultra high efficiency, let's stay with solar freaking rooftops, while fixing freaking potholes.

[ForsakenLive]

Solar city > solar roadways. Solar roadways are silly, we already have working roads.

[IAmSkip]

We already have these things called roofs, they sit far above the ground with less obstructions to light. 
They also don't have these things called cars and trucks driving over them, so maybe, just maybe we should put solar panels in a place first where they would actually be useful.

[juretrn]

You know what's worse than that? Eating meat. Right now eating less meat is the most cost-effective way to save energy (one of many sources). Nearly half of the food grown in the world is used to feed other food.

 

I think solar roadways are a cool idea and the technology behind them should be developed further. But they're not cost-effective right now, and there are better ways to 'go green'.

As for the meat thing, I have to agree, even as a die-hard meat-eater. However, trying to convince people to start eating it less might be more difficult than you think.

My problem with solar "freakin' " roadways is the fact that the technology is presented as ready to be mass produced, even if that is evidently not the case.  

 

If you factor in stuff like turning off when no vehicles are around (it's supposed to be a network, and you could use typical game LOD-like algorythms to handle it), making them fucking rectangular like everything else in tech world is (higher coverage per tile).

A few more other optimizations like master/slave tiling with only every xth actually having control modules for LEDs (which the EEVblog didn't even mention when it comes to power consumption, but on the other hand we have Intel Atoms) you could probably increase the efficiency by good 30%+, but it's still not enough to power a country.

Until we get some amazing breakthrough in solar tech with ultra high efficiency, let's stay with solar freaking rooftops, while fixing freaking potholes.

No, Atoms would not be the best option here, they're way too powerful for controlling a few LEDs. A simple ARM microcontroller would do just fine.

[LePawel]

No, Atoms would not be the best option here, they're way too powerful for controlling a few LEDs. A simple ARM microcontroller would do just fine.

Considering you could use 1 master tile for a whole street, or just offload it to a module somewhere under the road, you effectively play with a square grid of points, aka typical computer screen. Whatever solution is used, there are ways to optimize it well using techniques that already exist, we just lack the power generated from these. You could add Lagiewka's bumper-style tech to spin a rotor whenever a car goes over the tile. Why am I even giving this guy more ideas, he already got 2KK.

[TicTac]

The man knows what hes saying its bull shit

[skywake]

From Wiki. Germany, two years ago, with no solar roads.

 

Roads?

 

etc, etc

 

Road works required to ease congestion as it is is bad enough. Not to mention the shitstorm created when there's one little car crash at the wrong time of day or even just bad weather. We don't need "oh noes, the lights are down" as another potential failure. The roads ain't broke and you can get plenty of space for renewables in all sorts of other places. The problem is not a shortage of space for renewables. The problem is a lack of political will and/or upfront capital.