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This article from 4 days ago says a solar road in the Netherlands is doing well, so it seems like the French road is just a bad design? I don’t know if they are

This article from 4 days ago says a solar road in the Netherlands is doing well, so it seems like the French road is just a bad design? I don’t know if they are in fact different hardware: https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-first-solar-road-turned-out-colossal-failure-2019-8 https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-first-solar-road-turn...

close04 7y ago
The one in the Netherlands seems to be a 70m solar cycle lane. Cars will destroy a surface a lot faster than bikes. Maybe (dedicated) bike lanes would be a good place to start with this.
- Athas 7y ago
  That sounds like a good idea. It would also give cities more incentive to keep the like lanes well maintained (even in bike-friendly cities, bike lanes are usually less well maintained than motorways). One problem is that bike lanes are often located close to shade-providing buildings or vegetation.
  - kaybe 7y ago
    How great would it be to have a roof of solar cells above the city's bike paths. No problems with precipitation or sun and less maintenance.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  I think it'd be much better putting panels over roads. It uses pretty much the same footprint and it'll reduce the effect of roads being huge heat sinks they are.
  - close04 7y ago
    This seems like a massive undertaking given that those panels would sit atop fast moving traffic and stand up to the elements (like tons of snow). But I'm sure at some point it will be perfectly feasible.
- tzs 7y ago
  It's not obvious to me that cars will destroy a surface faster than bikes. Yes, cars weigh a lot more, but that weight is distributed over a larger area. The force on a given square millimeter of the surface that the vehicle is on is actually 2-4 times as high for a bike than from a car. This is why bike tires typically are inflated to 2-4 times the pressure of car tires.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    It's not the point load, it's the total load. Which bends the road. Bending brittle things like solar cells cracks them. Movement of the car also causes compression waves to move through the roadbed. Roads need regular resurfacing because bending the roads constantly causes them to crack and crumble.
    - close04 7y ago
      Also wider tires on cars are able to catch and drag small pebbles that add to the damage.
  - makomk 7y ago
    Maybe the cyclists avoid the solar section. Remember, cycles are a lot less inherently stable than cars and provide much less protection in case of a crash, and glass is slippery. Even metal manhole covers get a little scary when wet.
BlackLotus89 7y ago
Nope the netherlands solar cycling road is not doing fine it had to be cemented over because it couldn't be repaired. https://mobile.twitter.com/davidhembrow/status/1122496304008126464 https://mobile.twitter.com/davidhembrow/status/1122496304008... The chinese solar road died as well. https://interestingengineering.com/solar-roadways-engineering-failure https://interestingengineering.com/solar-roadways-engineerin... (no they weren't stolen a later article reported that entire panel sections came off through traffic) https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2131241/chinas-solar-highway-was-victim-heavy-traffic-and-bad-design-not https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2131241/chin... So did the german. https://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/erftstadt/feuerwehr-musste-erneut-anruecken-solarradweg-in-erftstadt-gesperrt-und-zugedeckt-32277516 https://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/erftstadt/feuerwehr-mu... And I don't want to start with solar freaking roadways where normal pavement failed within a month.

close04 7y ago

The one in the Netherlands seems to be a 70m solar cycle lane. Cars will destroy a surface a lot faster than bikes. Maybe (dedicated) bike lanes would be a good place to start with this.

Athas 7y ago
That sounds like a good idea. It would also give cities more incentive to keep the like lanes well maintained (even in bike-friendly cities, bike lanes are usually less well maintained than motorways). One problem is that bike lanes are often located close to shade-providing buildings or vegetation.
- kaybe 7y ago
  How great would it be to have a roof of solar cells above the city's bike paths. No problems with precipitation or sun and less maintenance.
hanniabu 7y ago
I think it'd be much better putting panels over roads. It uses pretty much the same footprint and it'll reduce the effect of roads being huge heat sinks they are.
- close04 7y ago
  This seems like a massive undertaking given that those panels would sit atop fast moving traffic and stand up to the elements (like tons of snow). But I'm sure at some point it will be perfectly feasible.
tzs 7y ago
It's not obvious to me that cars will destroy a surface faster than bikes. Yes, cars weigh a lot more, but that weight is distributed over a larger area. The force on a given square millimeter of the surface that the vehicle is on is actually 2-4 times as high for a bike than from a car. This is why bike tires typically are inflated to 2-4 times the pressure of car tires.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  It's not the point load, it's the total load. Which bends the road. Bending brittle things like solar cells cracks them. Movement of the car also causes compression waves to move through the roadbed. Roads need regular resurfacing because bending the roads constantly causes them to crack and crumble.
  - close04 7y ago
    Also wider tires on cars are able to catch and drag small pebbles that add to the damage.
- makomk 7y ago
  Maybe the cyclists avoid the solar section. Remember, cycles are a lot less inherently stable than cars and provide much less protection in case of a crash, and glass is slippery. Even metal manhole covers get a little scary when wet.

BlackLotus89 7y ago

Nope the netherlands solar cycling road is not doing fine it had to be cemented over because it couldn't be repaired. https://mobile.twitter.com/davidhembrow/status/1122496304008126464 https://mobile.twitter.com/davidhembrow/status/1122496304008... The chinese solar road died as well. https://interestingengineering.com/solar-roadways-engineering-failure https://interestingengineering.com/solar-roadways-engineerin... (no they weren't stolen a later article reported that entire panel sections came off through traffic) https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2131241/chinas-solar-highway-was-victim-heavy-traffic-and-bad-design-not https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2131241/chin... So did the german. https://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/erftstadt/feuerwehr-musste-erneut-anruecken-solarradweg-in-erftstadt-gesperrt-und-zugedeckt-32277516 https://www.ksta.de/region/rhein-erft/erftstadt/feuerwehr-mu... And I don't want to start with solar freaking roadways where normal pavement failed within a month.