Solar Roadways

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This article is about the company. For general discussion of this concept, see Smart highway.
Solar Roadways Inc
Startup
Founded 2006 (2006)
Founder
  • Scott Brusaw
  • Julie Brusaw
Headquarters 721 Pine Street,
Sandpoint, Idaho 83864,
United States [1]
Website solarroadways.com

Solar Roadways Incorporated is a startup company based in Sandpoint, Idaho, that is developing solar powered road panels to form a smart highway. Their technology combines a transparent driving surface with underlying solar cells, electronics and sensors to act as a solar array with programmable capability. Solar Roadways Inc is working to develop and commercially produce road panels which are made from recycled materials and incorporate photovoltaic cells.[2]

History

File:Solar Roadway Parking Lot Prototype.jpg
Solar Roadway panel prototypes

In 2006, the company was founded by Scott and Julie Brusaw, with Scott as President and CEO. The company envisioned replacing asphalt surfaces with structurally-engineered solar panels capable of withstanding vehicular traffic."[3] The proposed system would require the development of strong, transparent, and self-cleaning glass that has the necessary traction and impact-resistance properties.[4]

In 2009, Solar Roadways received a $100,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the Department of Transportation (DOT) for Phase I to determine the feasibility of the proposed project.[5] In 2011, Solar Roadways received $750,000 SBIR grant from the DOT for Phase II to develop and build a solar parking lot.[6] The DOT distinguishes the technology proposed by Solar Roadways Inc. as "Solar Power Applications in the Roadway," as compared to a number of other solar technologies categorized by the DOT as "Solar Applications along the Roadway."[7] From SBIR grant money, Solar Roadways has built a 12-by-36-foot (3.7 by 11.0 m) parking lot covered with hexagonal glass-covered solar panels sitting on top of a concrete base, which are heated to prevent snow and ice accumulation, and also include LEDs to illuminate road lines and display messages. The hexagonal shape allows for better coverage on curves and hills. According to the Brusaws, the panels can sustain a 250,000 lb (110,000 kg) load.[8]

In April 2014, Solar Roadways started a crowdfunding drive at Indiegogo to raise money so they can get the product into production. In May, it was extended by another 30 days. The campaign raised 2.2 million dollars, exceeding its target of 1 million dollars.[9] The drive became Indiegogo’s most popular campaign ever in terms of the number of backers it has attracted.[10] The success was attributed in part to a Tweet made by George Takei, who played Sulu on Star Trek, due to his more than 8 million followers.[11][12] One of the Brusaws’ videos went viral, with over 20 million views as of November 2015.[12][13]

In November 2015, the USDOT awarded Solar Roadways a Phase IIB SBIR contract to further their research. The 2-year $750,000 award includes additional civil engineering tests including freeze/thaw cycling, moisture conditioning, shear testing, and advanced loading.[citation needed]

Technology

Solar Roadway panels are planned to be available in two texture designs: a semi-smooth surface designed for light traffic, and a rougher surface for highways. Targeted load capacity is 250,000 pounds (110,000 kg).[14]

The panels are designed to be hotswapped if a unit is damaged. The damaged unit would be remanufactured.[14][15] The panels are being designed to last a minimum of 20 years. Solar Cells can last up to 30 years before efficiency suffers.[14]

Power grid

Solar Roadways estimate they could produce at least 14,085 billion kilowatt-hours in one year.[16] Their SR2 Panel was able to generate approximately 302.506MWh per year per lane mile, enough to remove 86 homes from the grid on a 2 lane road. Their SR3 Panels are able to generate roughly 1/3 more energy than the SR2 Panels.[17][18] The United States used 3,937.003 Billion Kilowatt-hours in 2014.[19] Solar Roadways are intended to function as a smart grid.[20]

Weather management

The panels contain low power heating elements intended to keep the temperature above 32 °F (0 °C) to prevent snow and ice from accumulating. This is designed to obviate the need for snowplows. The power going to the heaters is generated by the panels themselves.[21] A "Cable Corridor" running along the road can deposit snowmelt or stormwater below the frost line, bring it to a treatment facility, or deposit the liquid into existing drainage systems.[22]

Traffic management circuitry

The positioning circuitry in the panels would enable a local positioning system.[15] The panels' big-data-gathering capabilities would be harnessed to reroute traffic intelligently.[23][24] Each panel has a series of LEDs to display lane markings or warnings of wildlife, fallen rock, and accidents. Cars with compatible hardware would receive driving directions from the road.[24] The LEDs are also claimed to enable dynamic rearrangement of parking space layouts.[23] The firm claims brightness will remain acceptable even in daylight, and will adjust automatically.[23][25][26] Each panel contains several load sensors, whose data gathering is touted as useful in alerting drivers to hazards.[15] They also have the potential to weigh every truck in a weigh station's queue simultaneously.

Anti-theft mechanism

The panels communicate with one another wirelessly to report malfunctions or unauthorized tampering. This would allow law enforcement to trace a stolen panel and, in turn, the thief.[15]

Feasibility

In 2014, doubt was expressed regarding the political feasibility of the project on a national scale by Jonathan Levine, a professor of urban planning at the University of Michigan. He suggested, however, that a single town might be able to deploy the concept in a limited test case such as a parking lot.[27]

Sebastian Anthony wrote in ExtremeTech that the cost to replace all roads in the United States with Solar Roadways panels would come to approximately $56 trillion, based on Scott Brusaw's cost estimate of $10,000 for a 12×12-foot section.[28] The company's website rebutted that amount, saying the $10,000 cost was an estimate of what would be required to achieve cost parity with asphalt roads, and that the actual cost per panel was still unknown.[29]

Dr Roy Spencer criticized the claim that the solar panels in winter will use the energy they generate to melt snowfall, pointing out the fact that plain black asphalt is approximately 100% efficient at converting solar rays into heat, requiring breaking of the law of conservation of energy for this method of melting snow to work.[30]

Dr. Phil Mason has released a series of videos that strongly criticize Solar Roadways.[31][32][33] Dr. Mason argues that solar roadways are infeasible on the grounds that:

  • The tempered glass used in solar roadway panels is too soft, fragile, and expensive to be a viable road surface;
  • The creators of solar roadways do not, in fact, use the recycled glass that they portray in their videos in the construction of solar panels;
  • The cost of the power transport systems that would be necessary to support Solar Roadways would be too expensive;
  • The amount of power required to feed LEDs bright enough to create road lines that are visible from a distance, at an angle, and in direct sunlight would be astronomical;
  • It would require a great deal of energy to use heating elements to melt the snow that would fall on solar roadways, and it is much more efficient to simply plow the snow off the roads, as per current practice;
  • Solar panels lying flat as a road surface would gather very little electricity compared to solar panels that are raised and angled, and especially solar panels that are raised and designed to track the movement of the sun; and
  • Solar panels serving as a road surface would be very difficult to maintain.

List of awards and honors

  • 2009 EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards "Best Enabler Award for Green Engineering" category finalist.[34]
  • 2010 EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Awards "Most Promising Renewable Energy Award" category finalist.[35]
  • 2010 General Electric Ecoimagination Community Award of $50,000.[36]
  • 2013 World Technology Award finalist.[37]
  • 2014 Popular Science. One of 7 "Best of What's New" Engineering category in the "100 Greatest Innovations of the Year-2014" article.[38]

See also

References

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External links

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