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posted by
cmn32480
on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:32AM
from the checking-the-cost-benefit-numbers dept.
from the checking-the-cost-benefit-numbers dept.
France has opened what it claims to be the world's first solar panel road in a Normandy village.
A 1km (0.6-mile) route in the small village of Tourouvre-au-Perche covered with 2,800 sq m of electricity-generating panels, was inaugurated on Thursday by the ecology minister, Ségolène Royal.
It cost €5m (£4.2m) to construct and will be used by about 2,000 motorists a day during a two-year test period to establish if it can generate enough energy to power street lighting in the village of 3,400 residents.
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World's First Solar Panel Road Opens in Normandy Village
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Don't believe everything you hear or anything you say.
(Score: 2) by KiloByte on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:49AM
This doesn't sound like a cost-effective idea to me. A road receives a lot of wear and needs to be repaired/replaced often. Thus, the cost of hardened solar panels will come up again and again.
Putting ordinary, more effective solar panels somewhere else would avoid this problem entirely. A road doesn't take so much space you can't afford losing that much land.
Ceterum censeo systemd esse delendam.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:59AM
Not to mention the solar panels can't generate electricity in the moments that cars are on top of it. Solar panels 20 ft away to the side of the road don't have that problem.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:06AM
Stop being sensible! This is a win for green ecoterrorists! A win!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:20AM
Incredible observations. Nobody thought of that. Have you considered donating 2 minutes of brain power to any other problems? We sure need you.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday December 28 2016, @10:34AM
I do not believe this effort was meant to be terribly efficient or cost-effective.
I do believe this effort is meant to gain insight/edification.
Do not all of us do things occasionally just because we want to tinker and gain experience - even if its not the best way to do it? 1KM is not a lot of road, but its enough to get a scalable idea of what to practically expect.
This is an educational toy. And worth it.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 28 2016, @02:30PM
What kind of insight? That putting solar panels where 18-wheelers will drive over them and break them is a dumb idea when there's all sorts of real estate without that problem that could be used instead? That putting square circuits into a hexagonal shape for no reason is counterproductive? That there are rubes who will support staggeringly stupid kinds of engineering if they look cool and sound like they might help save the environment?
Solar roadways are an idea that makes sense only if your goal is to make solar power seem as inefficient and impractical as possible.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @06:23PM
What kind of insight? That putting solar panels where 18-wheelers will drive over them and break them is a dumb idea when there's all sorts of real estate without that problem that could be used instead? That putting square circuits into a hexagonal shape for no reason is counterproductive? That there are rubes who will support staggeringly stupid kinds of engineering if they look cool and sound like they might help save the environment?
Solar roadways are an idea that makes sense only if your goal is to make solar power seem as inefficient and impractical as possible.
I'm more inclined to think that the government (or company) who installed these at a substantial expense has spent more time and effort on this than a random commenter on the internet. If it were as obvious as you seem to think it is then nobody would bother.
So turning your post around, my guess is they want to find out:
1) That their models and which suggest these roads will be durable enough to withstand 18-wheelers for X number of years is actually valid.
2) The manufacturing processes to create hexagonal cells is valid, cost efficient, and scaleable. (Or alternatively creating square circuits on roads work, or the waste from jamming squares into hexagons isn't "too much.")
3) What are the unforeseen benefits and drawbacks of such a road. Maybe they don't need to be de-iced in Winter? Maybe car studs destroy them? Maybe they produce extra energy during rain because of some strange phenomina of how the humidity affects electrical conductivity? Maybe they create too much glare in the evenings to safely drive on?
It's not my money, so I'm happy to see them try this out. Unless you happen to live in France, then why do you care how they are spending their money?
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Wednesday December 28 2016, @11:43PM
The manufacturing processes to create hexagonal cells is valid, cost efficient, and scaleable. (Or alternatively creating square circuits on roads work, or the waste from jamming squares into hexagons isn't "too much.")
I would have expected you, of all people, to favour hexagonal tesselation. Please consider changing your username to T-square. There is a group that wants to build roads from hexagonal modules:
/article.pl?sid=14/05/23/0017212 [soylentnews.org]
/article.pl?sid=16/10/06/1855218 [soylentnews.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Roadways [wikipedia.org]
A glance at the photo which adorns the article reveals that this project in France isn't that. It appears to have rectangular cells arranged, brick-like, into larger rectangular panels.
Photovoltaic cells are made in hexagonal, circular, and other shapes. For the kind that are made from silicon wafers, a circular cell means the least wasted sillicon, since the wafers are inherently circular. Hexagonal cells offer efficient coverage of surface area in use, with some wasted silicon. Square cells also offer efficient coverage of surface area in use (more efficient, if the area is rectangular) but incur more wasted silicon.
http://www.sciencephoto.com/media/341514/view [sciencephoto.com]
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/4089705.html [freepatentsonline.com]
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday December 28 2016, @06:53PM
How much do they save by not needing to run miles of copper to all those light poles, I wonder.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday December 28 2016, @07:33PM
If all you wanted to do was power the light poles with minimal wiring, then you could put the solar panels on the top of the light poles. Or, depending on the situation, you could put the solar panels next to the road on a purpose-built rack mount, like those used in many solar installations in rural areas right now. Both of those options would be cheaper and easier than putting solar panels in the middle of the road.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:43PM
1) How much money do they save by having just a single wire pair running along the street instead of a web of wire connecting all the individual road panels?
2) How much copper wire does it really take to bridge the one foot gap between the light and the solar panel on top of it?
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mdOQFs5eTr8/TZrIvrpkekI/AAAAAAAAARY/PO9RMPBVppk/s1600/solar-powered-light.jpg [blogspot.com]
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Wednesday December 28 2016, @03:35PM
Unfortunately, being flat, 2m of panels only collect 1-1.5m of light, whereas if they were on south-facing sloped roofs, they could collect up to 2m of light.
I think research into better ways of collecting solar energy, new PV tech, is more important than experiments in deploying practically useless tech.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @01:36PM
Even bad ideas deserve a chance! Participation medals for all!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday December 28 2016, @09:39PM
Do not forget to make piezoelectric roads and wind turbines on the highways' sides and free all energy related research from patents and industrial secrets and plutocracy defending regulations.
And kill all lawyers.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Wednesday December 28 2016, @08:35AM
TBH, this kind of thing makes far more sense for the drivable portions of parking lots or roads in the middle of nowhere than it does to any of the places they've tried to use it.
And even there, it would make more sense to have more conventional solar arrays as that way you could cover the entire parking lot and give people someplace to get out of the rain as they go to and from their vehicles.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @12:38PM
Probably makes sense only as a real-world testbed that gets accelerated wear compared to a parking lot or cycle lane so that they can make an educated guess if it would work 20-30 years (which I'm told is the average
service life of streetlamps) there. Also the solar cells are probably just a small fraction of the 5 million total - modern road construction is expensive although (or because) you usually do not see more than five guys and a
couple of strange steel beasts on site at any time.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday December 28 2016, @12:38PM
What I'd like to see is someone setup a camera along a portion and take still shots every time a car passes by. Then along with that, setup a data logger on the output and record the output of the array. Then we stitch the stills into a time-lapse video along with the power output plot and time stamps.
I'd like to see how fast dirt grinds the surface into an opaque mess while watching the power output drop. I don't understand how anyone thinks this is a good idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 28 2016, @02:44PM
RTFA
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday December 28 2016, @05:30PM
IRTFA. Your point?
(Score: 1) by anubi on Thursday December 29 2016, @06:32AM
I believe they have exactly the same curiosity about stuff like that as you do. And they are gonna find out. Empirically.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]