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US roads are home to several critical subterranean infrastructures: water, sewer, electrical, natural gas, and internet. Our roads are constantly being cut open

US roads are home to several critical subterranean infrastructures: water, sewer, electrical, natural gas, and internet. Our roads are constantly being cut open, trenched, and patched to do maintenance and repairs to these systems. In the US, we have large amounts of unused space on top of our buildings. Placing panels on the top of buildings puts the electricity near its consumption point and reduces building cooling costs. The issues with placing solar panels on roofs is the high cost of installation. I would guess the cost of installing panels on busy streets would be similar to the cost of installing them on rooftops.

maxerickson 11y ago
Rooftop is great for medium and low density residential. Higher density residential and industrial and it starts to get difficult. The municipality here is in the process of disposing of their ~30 MW power plant (mostly coal + oil peaker), that serves ~20,000 people. Rooftop would handily meet summer needs, winter heating is another question (there is space, it would be too costly). A nearby mill has a 100 MW natural gas plant and occupies considerably less area than is served by the municipal plant. US power plant data is here: http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm
- superuser2 11y ago
  >Higher density residential and industrial and it starts to get difficult. Rooftop solar may not be profitable for individual building owners, but is still likely to be a good thing across the community. A more "socialized" model where the costs are borne and the generated power reaped across the grid, rather than per-building, makes more sense. Particularly since we're talking about this as an alternative to solar panels in roads.
PhasmaFelis 11y ago
> Our roads are constantly being cut open, trenched, and patched to do maintenance and repairs to these systems. At a glance, it looks like the solar road system uses semi-modular panels. That could possibly make road work much easier than it is on asphalt, which requires a ridiculous array of equipment to cut away the offending area before work begins, then lay down an entirely new replacement section once work is complete.

maxerickson 11y ago

Rooftop is great for medium and low density residential. Higher density residential and industrial and it starts to get difficult. The municipality here is in the process of disposing of their ~30 MW power plant (mostly coal + oil peaker), that serves ~20,000 people. Rooftop would handily meet summer needs, winter heating is another question (there is space, it would be too costly). A nearby mill has a 100 MW natural gas plant and occupies considerably less area than is served by the municipal plant. US power plant data is here: http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm http://www.eia.gov/state/maps.cfm

superuser2 11y ago
>Higher density residential and industrial and it starts to get difficult. Rooftop solar may not be profitable for individual building owners, but is still likely to be a good thing across the community. A more "socialized" model where the costs are borne and the generated power reaped across the grid, rather than per-building, makes more sense. Particularly since we're talking about this as an alternative to solar panels in roads.

PhasmaFelis 11y ago

> Our roads are constantly being cut open, trenched, and patched to do maintenance and repairs to these systems. At a glance, it looks like the solar road system uses semi-modular panels. That could possibly make road work much easier than it is on asphalt, which requires a ridiculous array of equipment to cut away the offending area before work begins, then lay down an entirely new replacement section once work is complete.