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Subjectivist wrote:

lpetrich wrote:Solar-road tiles also have the problem of surviving heavy vehicles traveling over them, like 18-wheeler semi-trailer trucks. I think that this problem is much more serious than what some of the tiles' advocates seem to think. Equivalent Single Axle Load | Pavement Interactive gives an approximate rule of thumb:

(road-damage amount) ~ (weight per axle)4

From that page:

Heavy trucks and buses are responsible for a majority of pavement damage. Considering that a typical automobile weighs between 2,000 and 7,000 lbs (curb weight), even a fully loaded large passenger van will only generate about 0.003 ESALs while a fully loaded tractor-semi trailer can generate up to about 3 ESALs (depending upon pavement type, structure and terminal serviceability).

ETA: This road-damage factor means that it's not enough to test solar-road tiles with cars or small trucks. One has to test them with fully-loaded large trucks.

Good point, now picture what happens when a lowboy trailer hauling a large buldozer or excavator drives over it?

The local authority-funded pilot scheme costing €3m ($3.7m) "SolaRoad" pilot cycle path is constructed with two lanes, one of which is made of prefabricated concrete slabs connected to the national grid. One lane is made of 2.5 by 3.5 meter slabs of concrete with an integrated layer of crystalline silicon solar cells and has a top layer of translucent, tempered safety glass (~1cm thick).
...
The short stretch of road is expected to generate enough electricity to power 2 or 3 average homes annually.

Keith_McClary wrote:

The local authority-funded pilot scheme costing €3m ($3.7m) "SolaRoad" pilot cycle path is constructed with two lanes, one of which is made of prefabricated concrete slabs connected to the national grid. One lane is made of 2.5 by 3.5 meter slabs of concrete with an integrated layer of crystalline silicon solar cells and has a top layer of translucent, tempered safety glass (~1cm thick).
...
The short stretch of road is expected to generate enough electricity to power 2 or 3 average homes annually.

http://phys.org/news/2014-11-solaroad-w ... lands.html

An Amsterdam suburb now has a bike path that generates solar energy. On November 12, 2014, Dutch minister of economic affairs Henk Kamp unveiled a 70-metre cycle route in the commuter town of Krommenie, Netherlands, kicking off what could become national trend in power-producing roads.

Called SolaRoad, the innovation consists of 2.5-by-3.5-metre sheets of concrete, overlaid with crystalline silicon solar cells, and a centimetre-thick layer of protective, skid-resistant, tempered glass.

Kamp told reporters at the unveiling that the Netherlands aimed to triple its use of sustainable energy within five years and be energy-neutral by 2050.


Over the past year, the Netherlands has seen such eco-energy advances as solar panel “skins” retrofitted onto old houses and a bike path illuminated at night by millions of glowing, solar-powered nibs meant to look like van Gogh’s “Starry Night”.

“This could be a breakthrough in the field of sustainable energy supply,” writes Sten de Wit, one of the minds behind SolaRoad. “In particular, if the road concept will develop into a system, with which the generated electricity [powers] the vehicles driving on the road. Try to imagine that power will then be generated at the place where it is needed.”

Keith_McClary wrote:http://phys.org/news/2015-05-solaroad-path-electricity-yield.html

A public-private partnership in the Netherlands has such a pilot project going on, in the form of sunlight on the road surfaces converted into electricity, in the form of a bike path. The project participants for SolaRoad want the world to know that this project so far is looking good. SolaRoad is in a pilot phase for a three-year period; The Associated Press said that this was a 3.5-million Euro project.
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."
The engineers behind the bike path design had to develop a solar road that could not only have requisite strength but also resist skids. SolaRoad has been described as a "living lab" of about 70 meters.

Looking to the future, TNO project manager Wim ven der Poel said, "Using this energy to charge electric cars while they are driving over the road is a beautiful dream, which might become reality. SolaRoad acts as a step towards a closed ecosystem. From mobility through energy back to mobility – which makes the circle complete."
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-05-solaroad-p ... d.html#jCp

What a concept for a pilot project. Can't we change our roads into gigantic solar panels? Harvest energy from them? Get solar electricity from them, fed into the electricity grid and used for street lighting, traffic systems, households and electric cars?

Keith_McClary wrote:The World's First Solar Road Has Officially Crumbled Into a Total Failure

Newfie wrote:Here’s your answer, they didn’t account for LEAVES.

Who woulda thunk!