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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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You humans are all alike.
(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]