Solar Roadways get prototype funding from DOT
Tarmac 2.0 has just taken its first baby-step. The solar road technology that promises to produce clean electricity, replace power transmission and information infrastructure, requires no plowing and lights up to provide navigational and safety information is about to go from the drawing board to prototype production. The Department of Transport has seen fit to award the project $100,000 to construct the first 12' by 12' panel.
The panels that make up the road consists of three layers. The base contains power and data lines and is overlaid by the electronics strata that contains solar cells, LEDs and supercapacitors which would produce and store electricity while the LEDs would "paint" the surface with light. This layer also holds the microprocessors and communications device that would make highways "intelligent". The top layer is made of glass that should supply the same traction as asphalt, is strong enough to handle whatever traffic can dish out and protect the electronic goodies below. Scott Brusaw, the guy who came up with the Solar Roadways idea, estimates that if every street, driveway and parking lot was replaced with his invention, it would supply three times as much electricity as was used in the U.S. in 2003. Hit the jump for a video of Scott explaining his idea as well as a brief press release.
[Source: Solar Roadways]
PRESS RELEASE:
US DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION AWARDS $100,000
RESEARCH CONTRACT TO SOLAR ROADWAYS
Funds intelligent roads and parking lots
SOLAR ROADWAYS, SAGLE, IDAHO (August 25, 2009)- Solar Roadways today announced that it has been awarded a DOT contract that will enable them to prototype the first ever Solar Road Panel.
The Solar Roadways will collect solar energy to power businesses and homes via structurally-engineered solar panels that are driven upon, to be placed in parking lots and roadways in lieu of petroleum-based asphalt surfaces.
The Solar Road Panels will contain embedded LEDs which "paint" the road lines from beneath to provide safer nighttime driving, as well as to give up to the minute instructions (via the road) to drivers (i.e. "detour ahead"). The road will be able to sense wildlife on the road and can warn drivers to "slow down". There will also be embedded heating elements in the surface to prevent snow and ice buildup, providing for safer winter driving. This feature packed system will become an intelligent highway that will double as a secure, intelligent, decentralized, self-healing power grid which will enable a gradual weaning from fossil fuels.
Replacing asphalt roads and parking lots with Solar Roadway panels will be a major step toward halting climate change. Fully electric vehicles will be able to recharge along the roadway and in parking lots, finally making electric cars practical for long trips.
It is estimated that is will take roughly five billion (a stimulus package in itself) 12' by 12' Solar Road Panels to cover the asphalt surfaces in the U.S. alone, allowing us to produce three times more power than we've ever used as a nation - almost enough to power the entire world.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
Boyprodigy1 3:12PM (8/28/2009)
I wonder how well that would work when it snowed...
Reply
mylasergospewpew 3:23PM (8/28/2009)
my guess is that the parts that are covered by snow would be powered by the large percent of roads that arent covered by snow. also using the power generated by this highway grid, they could put heaters to melt the snow.
mapoftazifosho 3:24PM (8/28/2009)
Perhaps if the grid was interconnected...the roads could be heated...
Green Destiny 3:27PM (8/28/2009)
Talk about incentive to clear the roads!
Eugene 3:24PM (8/28/2009)
my guess is that the parts that are covered by snow would be powered by the large percent of roads that arent covered by snow. also using the power generated by this highway grid, they could put heaters to melt the snow.
Reply
Chicane 3:41PM (8/28/2009)
Heated roads with more black ice would be pretty sweet.
I'm pretty skeptical of anything like this working though. The surface would have to be much more durable than current roads. The weight of buses alone tears up and deforms the asphalt roads where I live and a motorcycle kickstand will penetrate the surface on a warm day (a crotch rocket, not even a cruiser).
Reply
Zeph 3:43PM (8/28/2009)
The possibilities are endless (and a few of them quite sinister). Great job, I think we are at the brink of the information road and the power generating road, technologies are maturing. We could have road which tells the repair departments where the potholes are. We could have a road that advises traffic of accidents. We could have the traffic lights and signs built into the road, no extra infrastructure needed. We could have dynamic context sensitive signage. We could have viehicle specific signage linked to gps and route planning. We could have per viehicle lighting at night, reducing consumption of energy and light pollution. We could have weather warnings on the road. We could have dynamic speed limits adapted to the car performance and to the road and traffic. Brilliant. I won't go into the sinister ideas, we have enough big brother nanny psychopathic state already.
I think this is really road 2.0. Awesome job. Has the potential to relaunch whole economies *wink wink* I don't remember being so excited with car related news.
Reply
mapoftazifosho 4:45PM (8/28/2009)
We could have advertisements in the road!!!!!
Joe 5:21PM (8/28/2009)
I like the idea of the per-vehicle lighting. Just have the road lines illuminate a few hundred yards in front of each car during low traffic flow. So if you are the only one on the highway, you can see everything you need to, and not waste the extra power. Plus, for unlit roads visibility would be much improved, especially in rain.
Speaking of rain, I wonder how traction on glass would be when wet. Although I'm sure a surface coat of something could fix that.
Kevin 3:52PM (8/28/2009)
I understand that if you make the glass thick enough it should be able to withstand a good amount of force and resist cracking. I worry more about what they would do about chipping and accident scenario's where 80k points would flip over and slide along the glass possibly destroying it in the process.
I wonder if it's cleaner to make new glass or new roads.
Reply
Chris M 4:03PM (8/28/2009)
Glass making requires much higher temperatures than are involved in concrete manufacture, which in turn takes higher temperatures than asphalt (asphalt comes from petroleum). So the energy requirements for initial production are much higher.
The real key question is durability. Glass is harder and more wear resistant than concrete and asphalt, and resists acidic damage and solvent damage much better than concrete or asphalt. If the lifespan of this "glass road" is long enough, it would compensate for the higher energy cost of manufacturing.
It will take a few years, but we'll see how well it holds up.
Chris M 3:55PM (8/28/2009)
$100,000 per 12' x 12' ? Well, that does involve prototype development costs, but that still sounds rather costly. It might be more cost effective to mount a "solar canopy" over the roadway instead. .
But if each of those sections has hundreds of LEDs and microprocessors and supercaps, that really raises the cost up unnecessarily. Most of those LEDs and microprocessors would never be used, and external batteries would be better and cheaper for energy storage. So I'd recommend that the LEDs and microprocessors only be used where they'd be expected to be used as lane markers and intersection warnings, and have the vast majority of those panel sections be simple passive solar collectors. That would reduce the cost considerably.
Snow and ice removal will be a major problem. Making the surface smooth would make for easy snow removal, but it would also make the road unacceptably slippery. Texturing the glass to provide good traction and water drainage would interfere with snow removal. Heating the panels to melt the snow would consume excessive amounts of power, far more than would be produced in the winter months - after all, if the winter sunlight carried sufficient energy to melt the snow, it would melt the snow directly even without those solar panels.
Reply
meme 5:13PM (8/28/2009)
Canopies aren't that simple. They have to be wind resistant and have more trouble bearing the weight of snow. Plus, they ruin the view.
"if the winter sunlight carried sufficient energy to melt the snow, it would melt the snow directly even without those solar panels."
Snow has an albedo of ~0.9 -- 90% of the light gets reflected. And it still does melt (or in cold weather, sublime) the snow -- just not as fast as we humans would like.
As someone who lives in a cold clime, the real benefit is to get rid of ice, not snow. Snow gets plowed off easily, but ice likes to stick around, and is more dangerous to boot.
$100k for a 12'x12' prototype isn't that bad. They'll obviously need to get costs down significantly in mass production, but that's not obscene for a prototype of that scale. Their numbers suggest they become competitive at about $10k per panel. If their panels hold up for as long as they think they will, I'm inclined to agree with them.
PopSmith 1:42AM (8/29/2009)
While I could be wrong I believe the $100,000 cost includes developing the "glass" (it isn't glass like a bottle, although it technically still is glass).
Their FAQs have a lot of answers to some great questions:
http://www.solarroadways.com/FAQ.htm
Green Destiny 4:01PM (8/28/2009)
You guys should check out the FAQ page on the Solar Roadways website: http://www.solarroadways.com/FAQ.htm
Reply
Chris M 5:04PM (8/28/2009)
Thanks, that was interesting. Also interesting was their "Numbers" page:
http://www.solarroadways.com/The%20Numbers.htm
They did make one crucial error in their calculations. They figured the electricity production based on the power production of standard solar panels, but those figures assume that the panels are directly facing the sun, not lying flat on the ground. Since the panels will not directly face the sun, and they will lose some sunlight due to reflection and scattering from the textured surface, the energy production will be about half of what they calculated.
They also assumed incorrectly that it would enable everyone to go "off grid". Not true. With the possible exception of a few private roads, these "solar roads", if built, will be fully integrated into the existing power grid, which will provide both backup power and energy storage.
wincros 4:10PM (8/28/2009)
It would certainly make it easy to have EV recharging stations everywhere. Maybe even induction charging while driving reducing the need for large batteries or stops required by "refueling".
Reply
Zeph 4:21PM (8/28/2009)
Probably both. First generation electrics would need plugs as there will not be enough solar roadway to induction charge them. And then we have the issue of night, it's not clear if the solar road will be able to store all the excess power it generates (although my guess is it eventually will). But I do think that, if this idea takes off (and I hope it does) that future electric cars need only have a tiny autonomy from battery, as most of their energy needs would come directly out of the road system. Off road being the exception of course, but for those we still have the ICE and clean fuels, such as ethanol.
dv 4:15PM (8/28/2009)
But what happens in stop-n-go traffic (jams)? Will the lightening eventually loose its power and then, voila, no center line. Its a great concept but would have pretty restrictive applications. The company would need to develop a minimum application standard that could be compared to a very good traffic study in order to determine whether the system would eventually create a return.
Its similar to the highway wind turbines discussed here in the past:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/05/01/highway-wind-turbines/
Stop-n-go traffic (jams) renders the technology useless. In any respect, it is something to follow. I could see the application on sidewalks even better on bike paths.
Reply
Zeph 4:27PM (8/28/2009)
You haven't read the faq or actually thought your idea fully through.
1. Bumper to bumper is actually leaving more than half of the road open, the center line and the average space between viehicles.
2. The solar road is a grid, it transmits power across itself, so it could feed off the clear lanes on the other side, for example.
3. Leds consume a tiny amount of power and the system needs battery backup so the lights work at night anyway.
You're right about all surfaces though, solar pavement is the way to go. You're totally wrong about traffic rendering it useless because you didn't fully realise what the idea is. My only question is when will I see a real fully designed panel that is standardized? The sooner governments of the world start adopting this standard the better.