Here's the indiegogo campaign And here's the funny video :D

Since I don't have an indiegogo account and this it looks like the campaign is focusing on the States anyway, I won't be donating, but I find this highly interesting and I at least want to raise some attention :)
(and yeah, I know there's a thread for this, but the video hyped me a bit, so I decided to make an extra-thread for this!)

Thoughts, opinions?

Very interesting, but I wonder about panel cost, grip, efficiency, endurance, maintenance (even from dirt).
Also, in my country, these would be all stolen in 10 minutes -_-

P.s: your link to the funny video points to its end!

I think they already tried this.

Haha, yeah, well, they should start building those first in countries where they wouldn't get stolen, lol.
And thanks for the hint! :D

Cool concept, but I'm really not sold on it.

Consider this:
These things will be relatively expensive to make. Compare the price of regular paved roads with how much these will cost.
Solar power, while it has its merits, gives a relatively low power output compared to the energy required to manufacture the panels. I would be surprised if these things don't require a lot of energy when they manufacture them. Will they even be able to make back the energy in the long run? How durable are they/how long will they last? Consider the heavy strain that will be put on them during day to day use, I doubt they'll give a very large + in the end.
What will prevent people who want to get to the components from opening them? If you can't open them, then you can fix them, and if you can open them, someone will probably end up stealing the valuable bits inside (consider how people go out of their way to steal copper, I don't think it's that far fetched).


For small scale use, like say on a plaza or in front of your house, sure, I could see these things being used, but I don't see them being used as an alternative to paved roads.

I'm thinking planned communities ie suburbs (in the States at any rate, I'm ad idiot regarding urban areas elsewhere).

I got nervous when I looked at their numbers page and saw some irrelevant stylized and badly-cropped trig identities image. Here's a summary of the page:

First point: We removed our old numbers and don't have any new ones.

Second point: It's difficult to compare the costs of solar roadways and existing roadways, so we're not going to do any cost analysis at all.

Third point: Potential energy generation. We're not going to describe any power figures per square meter, instead, we will ALWAYS assume we're dealing with the entire road surface area of the U.S., this will obfuscate our significant inefficiencies and every number we write will be really large and impressive.

Fourth point: Real world testing. First, our testing setup was less-than-ideal so just imagine how much bigger our numbers are going to be than this! (But we're not going to estimate this increase. Just imagine something big!) At least they did mention that the glass surface is reducing power output by 11% (though I expect that this is their most hopeful interpretation of this loss). Also, they mention that having horizontal panels (rather than oriented toward the sun) further reduces their output. In their test situation, by a further 31%. Here's the kicker: They never actually present their test results. They just apply these two losses to the massive theoretical figure from the earlier section. Yay, it's still a huuuuge number! Power for everybody!

Fifth point: We present some random points as if they are significant, but don't include any figures because we know they are not. First, did you know that horizontal solar panels sometimes perform better than those oriented towards the sun on overcast days? Also, at night, the headlights of passing vehicles generate power! Then we can use that power to inductively charge those vehicles so they can shine more light on our roads so we can generate more power etc. etc. etc. No numbers for you, of course, except we'll have enough power for the entire world!

Some of my own calculations: Their glass panels are 1/2" thick. A square meter of glass that thick weighs over 30kg. The energy required to produce one kilogram of glass, at the low end, is 5 kWh. So to produce the glass in a square meter of this surface is 150kWh. After the inefficiencies stated earlier, they can expect that square meter to produce 60kWh per year. Here in Boston, we get just over a meter of snow per year, which works out to about 100kg of snow per square meter of road surface. It'll cost 10kWh per year (per square meter) to melt that. So here, we're looking at 3 years of output just to recapture the glass production energy cost. And that's for cheap glass, not holy-shit-a-truck-is-driving-on-my-glass-no-problem glass.

Anyway, their numbers page sucks, and their analysis (at least, the one they are presenting) sucks. Trig identities stock art? Ugh.

This plan has been knocking around for decades. Still, I like it and hope they can do something useful with it.

I like the idea, and while I doubt is anywhere near complete I hope it grows to become something good. But I do wonder who will go clean the highways when cars with mud on their wheels drive by.

I understand the skepticism (and I couldn't do more research myself because of time constraints), but I do think someone has to make the first step. And then we'll see ;)

Theft and repair certainly came to mind.

Even if it's not stolen, you can't have roads need regular repair, it's impractical.

That's still a relatively long time in comparison to other energy sources. And yes, you are right about solar panels being placed in a relatively favourable area giving you a net-positive, but up north, it is not quite as good.
Note that I'm mainly experienced with the energy debate in my country (Sweden), but I have come in contact with some of the experts in the field (courtesy of my education, as some of Sweden's top research in this very field is being done where I study), and pretty much all of the people who do this research have been negative to the idea of using solar energy as a major source of energy for the country.


*edit* I should note that their opinion on solar power is in regards to solar power in its current state, and not in regards to solar power as a viable energy source in the future.

I've seen something similar but instead of solar panels they used pressure plates that when stepped upon - generated electricity. Imagine if the both are combined - a pressure plate solar panel! Double dip wining! ;D

You're surely talking about other renewables. Sweden has a lot of coast, so I'd imagine hydroelectric does well. Does wind, also? Even in the wind corridor it takes quite a while for turbines to pay off, since you have to put them up so high for optimal effect (building towers is so expensive...)

I guess I'm just rambling. I'll probably look into it in a few days when I have a few hours to kill. I'm no expert in the field but I did some solar panel installations a few years ago for work and got certified to do design work (it's harder than getting a toy out of a box of Cracker Jack, but not much), so solar's really the only renewable I know more about than a foray into Wikipedia will tell me.