A road covered in a layer of thin solar panels that can help power homes and offices is to be built in the UK next year. This is an interesting innovation.
The quarter-inch photovoltaic material can be glued on top of a traditional road surface and is tough enough to withstand lorries driving over it, according to the engineers behind the scheme.
Colas, a subsidiary of the French engineering firm Bouygues, is planning to test its Wattway solar road at up to three trial sites in the UK. One of the locations is likely to be near Cambridge.
In areas with 1,000 hours of sunshine a year, just 12ft of road surface can provide enough electricity to power the lights and electrical appliances of one home. Cambridge averages about 1,500 hours of sunshine a year.
How does it work?
- Solar panels, coated in glass bead resin to give vehicles grip, can be glues to roads
- 12ft of road surface can provide enough electricity to power the lights and electrical appliances of one home
The technology?s inventors suggest harnessing solar power from roads will be a more publicly acceptable way of producing green energy than large solar farms.
?The potential behind this is huge, if you [consider] the number of square kilometres of road that are available for energy instead of building big solar farms in fields,? said Pierre Trotobas, Colas?s development manager. ?There is no issue of public acceptance.?
The solar panels, which can also be glued onto cycle paths and car parks, are coated in a glass bead resin to give vehicles grip and prevent skidding. As well as being fed into the grid, electricity generated by the roads could be used to power street lights and electric road signs, and charge electric vehicles.
Colas is planning about 100 trials worldwide and has installed more than half a mile of the surface in the village of Tourouvre in Normandy. The 30,000 square feet of solar panels would be able to power all the public lighting in a town of 5,000 people for a year, according to the firm.
While the cost of the road is reportedly between ٟ,697 and ٠,121 per square metre (10 sq ft), the company hopes to make the technology cost competitive with solar farms by 2020.If this can work in our various countries which receive favorable climatic conditions, we would be conserving alot of energy.
reference.
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sunshine-strip-solar-road-panels-to-power-homes-bfpzthr3w
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11 Comments
thanks for sharing
Posted 07-02-2018 21:17
good report
Posted 07-02-2018 21:16
such an innovative idea thank you for sharing Joanita
Posted 07-12-2016 18:27
Thank u for sharing...Joanita
Posted 05-12-2016 23:30
Thanks for sharing the article with us, Joanita :)
Posted 03-12-2016 21:35
UK is doing very well when it comes to renewables. Great report
Posted 03-12-2016 05:13
Wow, the picture looks cool. Thanks for the report
Posted 02-12-2016 05:33
Thanks for sharing the article
Posted 29-11-2016 14:11
'Using Energy from Sun – Its Lot of Fun'.
Not using Renewable energy is Risky Business where bright ideas come from sun as the brightest alternative. Glad to see the great deeds, really an amazing idea.
Posted 29-11-2016 03:24
A very interesting innovation indeed. I have seen the use of solar panels on street lamps and roof tops. But trust me this is a very new thing to me. I got amazed that they can be planted in roadways too. Worth for an appreciation.
Posted 29-11-2016 01:38
Solar panels are increasingly being used here for more and more applications. UK is working full fledged to fulfil it's renewable energy potential by using solar panels for roads like you reported and by covering more and more of residential's roofs with solar panels. It's target is to get at least ten million homes in the UK with their roofs covered with solar panels by 2020.
Thanks for reporting.
Posted 29-11-2016 01:11