Idaho-based Solar Roadways founder Scott Brusaw is excited that his company has received a $100,000 grant to develop his prototype that turns roads into giant electricity-generating solar panels. Apart from providing energy to power our homes and street lighting, these roads could contain thousands of embedded LEDs to provide better street signage and make driving safer. He also believes the solar panel roads could last up to three times longer than the current petroleum-based asphalt surface and even be heated in winter to discourage dangerous ice build ups.
It’s a brave plan, but Brusaw is not reinventing solar power collection systems, he’s just deploying them in a practical way. He claims that in 2003, the US had more than 25,000 square miles of roads, parking lots and driveways that, if exchanged for solar panels with only 15% efficiency (about the average panel output currently available), would provide more than three times the power necessary for every home in the U.S., maybe enough for the whole world.
If you’ve ever stood in the middle of a hot road on a sunny day, you’ll know what Brusaw is talking about when he says our roads are wasting a lot of solar energy.
For example, Brusaw says that if we exchanged one mile of a four-lane asphalt highway with a solar panel road of the same dimensions, it would produce at least 13,376kWh of electricity a day – a whopping 4,882,240kWh per year (or enough to take 500 homes off the grid completely). And that’s with an average of only four hours of sunlight per day.
He says the viability of the project lies in finding a glass surface for the panels that has the same traction qualities as asphalt, can withstand a fully-laden semi trailer braking hard at 80mph, can withstand the heat and cold, reduce glare while absorbing the sun’s rays and house the LEDs that make road signage so much more efficient.
He’s optimistic that new roads laid of solar panels in a grid formation could power shops, homes, the road infrastructure etc. Bundling services such as Internet, phone and cable TV, along with the electricity infrastructure of the solar panels, these would further reduce costs and entice service providers to get on board with the idea.
Another great possibility with a solar panel road is embedding LEDs just under the glass surface. These would not only illuminate the dividing lines between lanes and the road shoulders, but could be used to display speed signs, warn of dangers ahead, even be interactive to show travel times, detours, changed conditions and directional arrows.
He says his research has shown that the average asphalt road costs USD$16 per square foot but only has a lifetime of seven years. He is hopeful of making the glass solar panels that last 21 years for $48 sq ft, which is a break even cost. When you add in the ‘free’ electricity you extract from it, his idea grows some legs.
If adopted, Brusaw claims, solar roads would provide enough energy to replace to replace all centralized power stations, including coal and nuclear-powered electricity generation plants.
In Canada with our harsh winters this may present a challenge, but if the US could make this work we all would benefit.
