France has opened what it claims to be the world’s first solar panel road, in a Normandy village.
A 1km (0.6-mile) route in the small village of Tourouvre-au-Perche covered with 2,800 sq m of electricity-generating panels, was inaugurated on Thursday by the ecology minister, Ségolène Royal.
It cost €5m (£4.2m) to construct and will be used by about 2,000 motorists a day during a two-year test period to establish if it can generate enough energy to power street lighting in the village of 3,400 residents.
In 2014, a solar-powered cycle path opened in Krommenie in the Netherlands and, despite teething problems, has generated 3,000kWh of energy – enough to power an average family home for a year. The cost of building the cycle path, however, could have paid for 520,000kWh.
Before the solar-powered road – called Wattway – was opened […]
It will be interesting to see how well the road holds up to traffic and the maintenance costs. It’s a brilliant idea.
America literally “paved” the way (pun intended as a vote of frusteration against petroleum based roadways) for many new technologies that other countries took the fruits of and adopted into use. One example is mag-lev trains. At this point, maybe we can let others do the same for us with solar pathways. When they become more cost efficient & proven..some cities in the US can try building them without the cost of pioneering & pilot testing. I agree with Tom, it is a brilliant idea!