In the lookup for sunlight - harvesting real land , one French engineering mathematical group is turning to roadway . AsBloombergreports , Colas SA , a underling of Bouygues , has plans to incorporate top-notch - strong solar panels into paving around the world .
The squad has already designed engineering science able of collecting solar energy while supporting heavy tractor - poke overhead . At the apparatus ’s core is a regular solar instrument panel . Colas SA ’s Wattway social unit has reinforced it with several coatings of different charge plate to protect the solar cells inside without freeze the Sun ’s rays . A layer of crushed looking glass on top keeps automobile from slide . Wiring in the route rout the power directly to the grid .
Construction of a test situation in Tourouvre in Normandy , France set out last month . The kilometer stretch of route includes more than 30,000 square feet of photovoltaics , which are promise to father up to 280 kilowatt of get-up-and-go . According to Wattway , that ’s enough electricity to business leader a twelvemonth ’s worth of public light in a town of 5000 . In addition to supplementing the great power power grid , Wattway ’s solar road can also accuse electric cars , light billboard , and feed H world power plant life .
Wattway is n’t the first grouping to come up with the bright thought . Last year , the Missouri Department of Transportation declare programme to buildAmerica ’s first public solar roadalong a part of Route 66 , and in that same yeara solar bike path in the Netherlandsgenerated enough DOE to power home for year . But this latest project is especially ambitious — after building their next two sites in Canada and the U.S. , Wattway has plans to examine the engineering in Africa , Europe , and Japan . They ’re install panels in 100 test sites over the next year with hopes to have them ready for commercial-grade use by 2018 .
Before that take place , the chemical group require to ensure their panels can withstand the weight unit of traffic . At this point , their control panel can hold up beneath an 18 - wheeler truck , but Wattway ’s chief technology officer Philippe Harelle says they may have worse luck under a snowplow . Cost is another barrier : control board used in solar route are more expensive than the one used in solar farm . But unlike solar farm , panels imbed in highways take vantage of free space . As Harelle toldBloomberg,“We wanted to find a 2d life for a route . ”
[ h / tBloomberg ]
