# Solar Roadways: The Prototype



## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

The Solar Roadways Project is experimenting a way to replace aspalt with strengthened glass encased with LED lights. This could also make snowplowing obsolete as the roadway itself will be heated, and could even be connected to the electrical/communication grid.



> *Snow-melting road technology in the works*
> By: Liane Yvkoff February 1, 2011 11:05 AM PST
> http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-13746_7-20030231-48.html
> 
> ...


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## Fargo Wolf (Oct 23, 2009)

I remember seeing this on the Discovery Channel. It's a neat concept. Isn't there a test section already built somewhere?


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## mrfusion (Oct 2, 2010)

Roads at night will be powered by energy generated by roads on the other side of the globe where the sun is still shining.


I must be a bit behind in technology, how do they plan to do that?


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

mrfusion said:


> Roads at night will be powered by energy generated by roads on the other side of the globe where the sun is still shining.
> 
> 
> I must be a bit behind in technology, how do they plan to do that?


Apparantly the roads will also carry electrical and fiber optic cable underneath so they can tramsit electricity from one place to another in addition to collecting solar energy.


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## mrfusion (Oct 2, 2010)

diablo234 said:


> Apparantly the roads will also carry electrical and fiber optic cable underneath so they can tramsit electricity from one place to another in addition to collecting solar energy.


Over 10,000+km?


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

mrfusion said:


> Over 10,000+km?


Yup, provided they use the same roadway surface and that they are connected of course.

Here is a quote from their website about the new layers of the new roadway surface.



> *Each individual panel consists of three basic layers: *
> 
> Road Surface Layer - translucent and high-strength, it is rough enough to provide great traction, yet still passes sunlight through to the solar collector cells embedded within, along with LEDs and a heating element. It is capable of handling today's heaviest loads under the worst of conditions. Weatherproof, it protects the electronics layer beneath it.
> 
> ...


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

Fargo Wolf said:


> I remember seeing this on the Discovery Channel. It's a neat concept. Isn't there a test section already built somewhere?


According to their *website* it mentioned that they were awarded a "Phase II" contract from the Federal Highway Administration, but there was no mention of a test section anywhere yet.


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## keber (Nov 8, 2006)

diablo234 said:


> Yup, provided they use the same roadway surface and that they are connected of course.


With what? Superconductors?


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

keber said:


> With what? Superconductors?


Read my earlier posts.


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## mrfusion (Oct 2, 2010)

diablo234 said:


> Yup, provided they use the same roadway surface and that they are connected of course.


Your first problem is, the other side of the world is normally not connected by road.


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## MattiG (Feb 11, 2011)

Well... First of all, when the snow is falling, there is no solar energy available at all due to the clouds.

Then, melting the snow is energy-consuming. According to the experiences in Finland, the minimum power needed is 300 watts per square metre. The power needed to melt one kilometre of a carriageway of 7.5 metres in width is 2.25 megawatts. Thus, a 1000 MW nuclear power station can melt 444 kilometres of road. How many kilometres of streets are there in New York?

Then, the solar power available per sqm is rather limited. The mean insolation (solar energy on the earth surface) in New York is about 200 W/sqm across the whole year. In winter, the figure is much lower (and that is why the winter occurs).


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

mrfusion said:


> Your first problem is, the other side of the world is normally not connected by road.


True however in North America alone the road network from the furthest westernmost point in Homer, Alaska to the eastern most point in Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia goes through six different time zones. Which essentially means that the time in which there is no sunlight would only be about a few hours to say the least.










Likewise if there was a paved roadway connection from Europe to say East Asia then it could actually achieve this same function.


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

MattiG said:


> Well... First of all, when the snow is falling, there is no solar energy available at all due to the clouds.
> 
> Then, melting the snow is energy-consuming. According to the experiences in Finland, the minimum power needed is 300 watts per square metre. The power needed to melt one kilometre of a carriageway of 7.5 metres in width is 2.25 megawatts. Thus, a 1000 MW nuclear power station can melt 444 kilometres of road. How many kilometres of streets are there in New York?
> 
> Then, the solar power available per sqm is rather limited. The mean insolation (solar energy on the earth surface) in New York is about 200 W/sqm across the whole year. In winter, the figure is much lower (and that is why the winter occurs).


Again this depends on wether they are connected or not. If it is bright and sunny in Cincinnati, while it is snowing in Cleveland for example then the solar power being collected in Cincinnati can be transmited over to Cleveland in order to heat the roadways and in theory melt the snow. Pavement in general tends to absorb and reflect heat anyways regardless, this will only enable it to become more efficient in transforming that heat energy into solar energy.


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## xzmattzx (Dec 24, 2004)

It sounds to me like there's too many variables in the equation to make this work for several years. I think we should stick with realistic goals, such as the opportunity for permeable streets.


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## keber (Nov 8, 2006)

diablo234 said:


> Read my earlier posts.


I did and I don't see presented any viable way to transport pretty big amounts of electrical energy over half the globe. If you meant copper electrical wires, then I can tell you, that this won't work.


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## mrfusion (Oct 2, 2010)

diablo234 said:


> True however in North America alone the road network from the furthest westernmost point in Homer, Alaska to the eastern most point in Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia goes through six different time zones. Which essentially means that the time in which there is no sunlight would only be about a few hours to say the least.


Oh, you American actually think the other side of the world means(or imply) the other side of America.


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## Schweden (Jan 5, 2008)

mrfusion said:


> Oh, you American actually think the other side of the world means(or imply) the other side of America.


:nuts:


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## MattiG (Feb 11, 2011)

diablo234 said:


> Again this depends on wether they are connected or not. If it is bright and sunny in Cincinnati, while it is snowing in Cleveland for example then the solar power being collected in Cincinnati can be transmited over to Cleveland in order to heat the roadways and in theory melt the snow. Pavement in general tends to absorb and reflect heat anyways regardless, this will only enable it to become more efficient in transforming that heat energy into solar energy.


No, it is not a question about whether it is cloudy or not, or wheter it is night or day. It is question about whether it is winter or not.

During the winter time, there simply is not solar energy enough to melt the snow 'in the real time':

The maximum solar radiation at the top of the atmoshphere is about 1366 W/sqm. The atmosphere absorbs about 30-40% of the radiation on a bright day. Thus, about 1000 W/sqm is the maximum energy to reach the earth surface. That is achievable if the elevation of the Sun is 90 degrees, thus somewhere between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of capricorn. The real energy received depends on the elevation of the Sun. At the winter solstice, the maximum elevation in New York is about 27 degrees at noon.

The daily average solar radiation on the earth surface at the latitude of New York during the winter months is about 120 W/sqm during bright days, thus far from being useful in this context.


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## diablo234 (Aug 18, 2008)

MattiG said:


> No, it is not a question about whether it is cloudy or not, or wheter it is night or day. It is question about whether it is winter or not.
> 
> During the winter time, there simply is not solar energy enough to melt the snow 'in the real time':
> 
> ...


While you do present some valid points, honestly it does not matter if the solar panels in themselves even collect enough energy to perform all those functions in themselves. As the guy in the video mentioned the main reason why they are looking into Solar Roadways is because of rising petroleum costs (which is the main ingrediant of asphalt). All of the other functions such as the LED lights, solar panels, etc are essentially just icing on the cake.


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## ed110220 (Nov 12, 2008)

keber said:


> I did and I don't see presented any viable way to transport pretty big amounts of electrical energy over half the globe. If you meant copper electrical wires, then I can tell you, that this won't work.


It doesn't talk about how the electricity would be transmitted long distances, but I presume it would not be via the roads themselves. The solar roads would feed their power into the general grid and then it could be transmitted by high voltage direct current (HVDC) over long distances.

HVDC connections are already being built to send electricity up to 2500 km (one under construction between Porto Velho and Sao Paulo in Brazil to send electricity from new dams in Amazonia to the more populated south east of the country) and even larger systems have been proposed eg to connect the planned Grand Inga dam in the Congo with South Africa, other parts of Africa and even the Middle East and Europe. Whether it would really be practical I don't know, but it suggests it is a serious idea.


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