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https://www.fudzilla.com/news/49241-french-solar-road-was-a-failure
A one kilometre "solar road" project paved with photovoltaic panels in France is "too noisy, falling apart, and doesn't even collect enough solar energy".
Le Monde describes the road as "pale with its ragged joints", with "solar panels that peel off the road and the many splinters [from] that enamel resin protecting photovoltaic cells".
It's a poor sign for a project the French government invested €5 million, or $5,546,750. The noise and poor upkeep aren't the only problems facing the Wattway. Through shoddy engineering, the Wattway isn't even generating the electricity it promised to deliver...
Normandy is not historically known as a sunny area. At the time, the region's capital city of Caen only got 44 days of strong sunshine a year, and not much has changed since.
Storms have wreaked havoc with the systems, blowing circuits. But even if the weather was OK it appears the panels weren't built to capture them efficiently... Solar panels are most efficient when pointed toward the sun. Because the project needed to be a road as well as a solar generator, however, all of its solar panels are flat. So even within the limited sun of the region, the Wattway was further limiting itself.
Also: Turns out a Road Made of Solar Panels Was, in Fact, a Bad Idea
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @02:07AM (4 children)
The budget went into my cousin's pocket at least. :)
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @02:30AM (3 children)
For 1km of solar road 5.5 mil doesn't seem too crazy.
(Score: 1) by Sulla on Friday August 23 2019, @03:05AM
5m for a test project that gets .6 miles of test area is a pretty good deal, especially for new tech. I am not one who would have any faith in something like this working, but it would have been nice if it did. The cost of trying was low so it was a good try.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 23 2019, @04:14AM (1 child)
That is actually bad for three reasons. The Colas road requires being built on an already existing road. Said roadway was a single lane. The average highway cost in France is 4.5 million Euros (IQR 3 mil to 5 mil) per lane-km of asphalt road with a 15 year minimum lifespan.
To add a bit of reference, a recent French highway project that came in at 110 million Euros per km had an extreme outlier effect on that mean.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday August 23 2019, @11:19AM
> The average highway cost in France is 4.5 million Euros (IQR 3 mil to 5 mil) per lane-km
It isn't fair to compare a prototype with existing technology.