Solar Energy: Roadway Towards a Renewable Future

What are they?

• They are panels that take the place of the asphalt roadways that are everywhere now.

What do they do?

• One roadway is a collection of solar panels, all of which have LED’s in them. Since they have LED’s, the road won’t have to be painted for new signs or hazards. Instead, the panels will only need to be reprogrammed to show the new correct signs.

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What are the pros?

• For people in the colder regions the panels will be heated to stay a few degrees above freezing in order to avoid any ice hazards in the road.
• If a deer walked in the middle of the road on the highway the panels can warn oncoming cars to the new danger ahead.
• They generate clean, renewable energy.
• The LED’s make driving at night safer.
• There can’t be potholes, the worst that can happen is that a panel will need to be replaced (which is much better than having to replace the whole street for one pothole).
• There can be outlets put into the roadways in order to charge electric cars.
• Traffic can be monitored using the roads instead of having to have cameras everywhere

What are the cons?

• The price to outfit all of the roads in the United States would be very high.
• The roadway produce DC energy, but houses use AC energy, and the DC-AC converter will lose energy in the process.
• The roadways could become very dirty, causing energy production to decrease (however this is only an estimated 9%)

Closer Look At Solar Roadways

http://www.solarroadways.com/numbers.shtml

http://www.solarroadways.com/vision.shtml

http://www.solarroadways.com/faq.shtml

Potential for Solar Roadways

How much energy could be produced?

• Using the approximated 31,250.86 square miles of roads, parking lots, driveways, playgrounds etc., and using the average of only 4 hours of peak daylight hours, it was estimated that the solar roadways could produce 13,385 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity.

How much energy is that?

• According to the Energy Information Administration, the United States used a combined total of 3,741 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity in 2009.