Greentech Lead America: Imagine a road made of solar
panels! What impact it could have on environment? You could save asphalt,
manufacturing costs and frequent maintenance. What is more beneficial about
solar roads is that you could produce electricity sufficient to power your city
or the entire country even!
Solar Roadways, a company dedicated to developing solar
road panels, is getting ready to materialize a project that could be a
revolutionary step towards converting U.S roads into solar panels.
The project has got fund from the Federal Highway
Administration. The company was given a contract by the Federal Highway
Administration in 2009.
The prototype solar
panels are made of structurally engineered panels consisting of three layers:
road surface, electronics, and base plate made of recycled materials. The road
surface is made of translucent material so that sunlight can pass through to
the solar cells beneath, but the surface is tough enough to withstand the
pressure from the traffic. The electronic layer beneath contains solar
collectors contains the electronic components required for sensing loads,
controlling heating elements for deicing and melting snow and running the LED
lighting system which provides road lines. The base plate, made of recycled
materials, distributes the power to the grid or local utility stations.
Following the success of the Solar Road Panel prototype,
the company has been warded a 2-year Phase II $750,000 contract by FHA to
develop a prototype solar parking lot that will be tested under all weather and
sunlight conditions. Future tests may include the concept of induction charging
EVs that could help the vehicles get charged as they drive down the road and
also to create a smart traffic management system.
Solar roads find several applications from street
lighting to electric vehicle charging and from home lighting to meeting
industrial and agricultural energy needs.
If the entire asphalt road in the U.S is replaced by
solar panels, the country could generate at least 13,961 billion Kilowatt-hours
of electricity, which is more than three times the electricity currently used
in the U.S every year.
editor@greentechlead.com