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ROI is the key. And yes I see your point. I do not see them becoming as cheap as shingles in the next 20-30 years, if ever.
But who know what breakthroughs will occur.

   

It's still a good concept.

   

I agree Jabber. A great concept actually and... who knows? Maybe start with some aspects of it such as the recreational/sport courts. Just a thought.

   

It would take decades to convert every form of concrete and asphalt road, side walk etc because so many different types of industries are connected to their maintenance and construction. 

   

How about some mall parking lots? They're bloody huge and may generate significant returns (if the mall isn't too busy!)

   

But solar panels need to be set at a certain angle to be effective. I understand hat some solar projects won't even look at you if your roof is the wrong pitch or not facing the correct direction. We've had solar power for decades now, has the cost of manufacturing come down at all?

   

Nice idea but I hare the concerns that others have pointed out, cost as well as the fact if just laid on the ground they would not be working to the full efficiency.

Now there are some other questions. What is the friction co-efficient on them for stopping, most of all when wet? THey are glass and glass is still way more slippery than concrete, even if it has knurling on it.

SO it melts the snow, where does the water go? Big ice damn on the side of the road? Into that gutter they talked about? It would have to be heated too or freeze up. Not sure it would work with Canadian winters.

Hackers! If I was a hacker I'd be all over this like dirt on a kid in a playground. Imagine what you could do! Forget roads they don't even have to get into the airports anymore, just screw up the landing strip from Peshawar and crash plans.

Oh and lets not forget the energy lobby. I'm sure they are looking forward to being put out of business. Nah, they'd kill this fast, if it does not kill itself.

Won't see these widespread in my life time, if in anything beyond a parking lot.

   

With Nano tech taking off, clear windows, with filaments between the panes will be used in office towers for power.

   

The solar road suffers from all of the draw backs of normal solar, plus it will cost far more. This is a solution to the problem than land in the desert costs too much to build solar... but wait that's not the problem.

The real problem with solar is it's terrible match against grid demand. Just as demand peaks for the day solar output drops near zero output.

You could use solar in the west to power the east coast peak demand, but then you are having to build massive transmission lines across the nation and then you are still stuck with the hugely inflated costs of solar.

Any grid level storage tech would be better applied to coal or nuclear plants letting them charge during the day and night to meet the evening peak demand. Currently it's cheaper to build a gas fired plant that does nothing all day long to meet the peak 4 hour demand than it is to build storage for it.

You can dismiss the solar road even if you grant them that their roads will last as long as normal roads, won't have a negative impact on driving, and will only cost slightly more than normal solar panels (which is wrong on many levels).

The suggestion that you could use panels in a parking lot is silly for two reasons. First the size of a parking lot is a in most cases a factor of the size of retail floor space. You could put normal solar panels on the roof of the building and end up with similar or greater solar power generated.

The other reason is that for again a fraction of the cost of a solar road you could put solar parking stall shades or partly covered parking with the panels well above the parked vehicles.

The final suggestion that the solar road could have built in heaters to melt snow and ice is a product of poor math. You can calculate the amount of energy on average that any set area will get from the sun. Given the how efficient the solar panel is you can calculate the amount of energy it can locally produce. That amount will not come even close to raising the surface temperature to near the freezing point in a timely manner given even a mild winter day (think -5 to -10). At best you could draw power from other locations to run the heaters.

For an explanation of why solar isn't economical you can watch the video below. Dr. Charles Forsberg is talking about the economic case for a high temperature nuclear reactor with natural gas to meet peak demand, but he does an excellent job explaining the reality of a power grid and the economics behind them.



Solar is not the solution, just ask Germany:



Good thing Canada has as much hydro electric and nuclear as it does. Although the short sighted have been trying to pass off cheap to construct expensive to run natural gas for years.

   

The real problem with solar is it's terrible match against grid demand.

One method that can be used for the short term storage of DC electricity is to use it to split hydrogen from oxygen. Hydrogen is hard to store for a long time but for short periods, it could be used to power turbines that could handle the demand peaks.

   

If the was economically viable we would run coal fired plants round the clock, making hydrogen when grid demand was lower than output.

Then have fewer power plants in total and make up the difference with the stored fuel and turbines that would burn hydrogen.

But it's far cheaper to build another plant (or add another turbine set to an existing plant) and have it sit around all day burning fuel to stay at operational temperature but otherwise doing nothing waiting for the daily peak.

~

Any application of grid level storage would be more effectively used with conventional coal or nuclear power.

I'm not trying to be rude here, but I can't think of any technology that you could use to store solar power, either thermal or electrical, that wouldn't be more cost effectively used with a conventional power plant.

The only way that solar makes any sense is if you are openly hostile to all other forms of power generation, and create a situation where you may only use solar. So a win by default. In either case, a solar road is a terrible idea VS normal solar. It would be far cheaper to put LEDs in roads and run heating coils under the surface, that it would be to make a road of out solar panels.

To misquote the Ferengi; Good intentions and an empty sack is worth the sack.

   

If the was economically viable we would run coal fired plants round the clock, making hydrogen when grid demand was lower than output.


... except that burning something to make something that you can burn is inherently dumb. I was putting forward a method of storing excess DC electricity.

   

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