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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday May 13 2015, @01:49PM   Printer-friendly
from the the-future's-so-bright... dept.

Phys.org reports on a pilot project in the Netherlands to generate power from solar panels in a bike path that has so far exceeded expectations:

The first six months of the pilot phase were successful, according to a SolaRoad press release issued earlier this month. The energy yield was beyond their expectations. Spokesperson Sten de Wit said they were surprised to see the level of success so quickly. Case in point: "The bike road opened half a year ago and already generated over 3,000 kWh," he said. "If we translate this to an annual yield, we expect more than the 70 kWh per square meter per year, which we predicted as an upper limit in the laboratory stage. We can therefore conclude that it was a successful first half year."

 
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  • (Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday May 13 2015, @03:44PM

    by LoRdTAW (3755) on Wednesday May 13 2015, @03:44PM (#182428) Journal

    I'm betting it's north of $1200/m2 for the installation. Just pouring a square meter or square yard of concrete here in the US is around $100-300. Then add the panels, inverters, wiring, glass, and labour for that. Then we have the glass which will scratch and wear over time blocking light. Even scratch resistant glass isn't immune. And who cleans the glass when it gets dirty and how often?

    We had a new sidewalk poured in front of commercial property we own about 10 years back. Cost was around $10,000USD for about 90m2. A new electric meter for a tenant was $4000. All they did was add the meter pan, disconnect the tenants panelbox from ours and ran a new feeder from the meter pan. A 300W solar panel costs about $300, a dollar a watt and goes up or down depending on brand/quality/bulk etc.

    So think about how much this stuff costs. It adds up pretty quickly. The labour will always be your biggest factor no matter how cheap you can get the materials for. Labour is one thing that can't be mass manufactured unless you want to use slaves or something along those lines.

    People are ignorant of these factors when talking about green energy. The "fuel" is free but there is always a large upfront cost (like any project) and maintenance that someone has to perform.

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