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Let's do this Jeopardy-style. Answer: "Roads." Question: "What surface or environment -- by virtue of having no control over shading or solar angle, and by ma
by nkoren 11y ago
Let's do this Jeopardy-style.
Answer: "Roads."
Question: "What surface or environment -- by virtue of having no control over shading or solar angle, and by maximising dirt, wear-and-tear, and difficulty of maintenance -- is more or less the worst place on earth to mount photovoltaic panels?"
I mean, I know that roads occupy a stupid amount of surface area, and I understand the desire to do something better with that area. (Tip: just build less of them.) But seriously, as far as solar panels are concerned, they have nothing else going with them.
- funkyy 11y agoimo it would much smarter to try to extract heat power from roads rather than solar power. I always thought that in warm countries they should install piping under the roads with water that would get heated and brought to boiling thus generating electric power. Here is idea, instead of building stupidly expensive road that will most likely generate little power - just provide 75% grants to all that want to install solar panels, wind turbines or solar water heaters at their property. Problem solved.
- Retric 11y agoSolar panels are getting cheap. This makes many things that used to be stupid eventually become reasonable. Don't forget many things where dumb wastes of processing power, until they became reasonable.
- ajuc 11y agoThe problem is comparative cost. It's much cheaper and more efficient to build regular roads and regular solar panels. In such configuraiton: - solar panels won't ever be obstructed by cars - maintenance will be much cheaper and won't block the traffic - solar panels won't need to have pressure and wear-resistant cover that is still transparent in the whole spectrum (to not waste parts of it) - roads will be much cheaper and safer (optimize for grip instead of grip+transparency)
- deelowe 11y agoSolar panels are getting less expensive, but they are in no way "cheap" when compared to traditional road construction materials (concrete or asphalt).
- giarc 11y agoDuring the day, when the sun shines the brightest the roads will have the most amount of traffic, shading the panels from the sun. Doesn't make sense to me. Why not just spend this money and put solar panels on industrial buildings or state owned buildings?
- WalterBright 11y agoIt's also effective to simply put a white coating on the rooftops. (Reflects energy back upwards instead of absorbing it.)
- scriptproof 11y agoThere is a law to put solar panels or vegetation (to keep the heat) on roof of any new commercial building, starting in 2016.
- tetraodonpuffer 11y agoisn't the amount of traffic highest at commute times (dawn / dusk) and lowest, excluding night-time, at mid-day when available sunlight is highest?
- Qwertious 11y agoMost roads don't have much traffic - with a 3 second gap between each car and the cars going at 60KM/hr, the vast majority of the road will be open at any one time. And obviously, when the sun's high up the shadows will be the smallest. >Why not just spend this money and put solar panels on industrial buildings or state owned buildings? Proof of concept. Varying solar tech research to find unexpected gains. Maybe it turns out that putting solar panels on roads is actually extremely cost-effective, when you properly adapt the solar panels to road conditions?
- dheera 11y agoThere is a lot more area coverage in roads than state-owned buildings. Convert all roads and you can easily power the entire country many times over. If the government is going to foot the bill and make solar power happen immediately, roads have the advantage that they are immediately available land for solar generation. Build solar off-road and you have to choose between a legal battle of evicting civilians from their private property, or destroying government-owned nature reserves. Convert roads and you conveniently dual-purpose existing land area while minimizing environmental impact.
- rmason 11y agoBut can the panels survive a snow plow? If not, you're limiting it to perhaps(?) half of France. Yet everyone in the entire country pays for it with the gasoline tax.
- marshray 11y agoAlso: "Glass" "What is the worst solid dry surface to try to drive over?"