Free Power From Freeways? 

In Jinan, China  a single, unreinforced guardrail stood between the traffic and a ravine is where solar panels are being tested on the highway.  “If it can pass this test, it can fit all conditions,” said Li Wu, the chairman of Shandong Pavenergy, the company that made the plastic-covered solar panels that carpet the road. The experiment is the latest sign of China’s desire to innovate in, and dominate, the increasingly lucrative and strategically important market for renewable energy. The country already creates three-quarters of the solar panels sold globally. The potential for solar roads, are installed substituting for panels for  asphalt. Generating electricity from highways and streets, rather than in fields could save a significant amount of land. This is particularly important in  China since a its heavily populated  where demand for energy has risen.
 

More space is spared 

This equates to no power  lost in transmission, that could happen with projects in outlying locations. The land is essentially free since roads are needed anyway. Roads must be resurfaced every few years that’s expensive, so the installation of  panels could decrease  the cost  of maintenance. Solar roads are  becoming viable since  prices have fallen due to Chinese production. Road builders in China want to design solar roads that can wirelessly recharge electric cars running on them.  China’s leaders in solar road development are Pavenergy and Qilu Transportation. They’re working together in Jinan, in Shandong Province, making panels a state-owned highway construction and management company that operates the highway.

The surface of these panels, made of a complex polymer that looks like plastic, has more friction than a traditional road surface. The friction could be adjusted as needed during the manufacturing process to ensure a level of tire grip equal to asphalt.
Solar panels would likely be replaced less often than asphalt roads. But it remains uncertain whether they could take the pounding of millions of tires yearly  for over  a decade.
 

Concerns under review 

Solar road panels are less efficient than rooftop solar panels at converting the sun’s light into electricity since they lie flat. They’re  intermittently covered by vehicles, so they produce only around half the power that rooftop ones tilted toward the sun do. Solar roads are also more expensive than asphalt. At about $120 a square meter, or about $11 a square foot, to resurface and repair an asphalt road every 10 years.  Panels on a highway would likely need to be replaced less often than asphalt.  A solar road harvests about $15 a year worth of electricity from each square meter of solar panels. It  could roughly pay for itself after about 15 years. Less clear is whether the panels could handle the pressure of  millions of tires yearly for more than a decade or theft may occur. A few square feet of solar panels disappeared less than a week after being installed. 

Solar power is here to stay, and the sooner you explore how much you can save, the sooner you can enjoy the benefits of residential solar power. Go to HahaSmart.com and try our price checker tool. It tells you how much solar power you need, and how much you can save. Please visit our solar blog to find out more about the benefits of going solar.