French solar road completely declared failure

In 2016, when the world ’s first solar panel road called Wattway was opened to traffic, people were all smiling, hopeful, and the media gathered together to walk along the road that was considered the road of the future . The Waterway Solar Highway consists of 2800 photovoltaic panels, covering a 1km long road, leading to the northern town of Normandy. France spent $ 5.2 million on this. It is hailed as the longest solar highway in the world. The French Ministry of Environment called the solar road "unprecedented", and French officials said that the road made up of photovoltaic panels will provide electricity for the street lamps in the local town of Tuluvre. The French Minister of Energy even stated that she hopes that in the next five years, there will be 1.6 km of solar panels installed on every 1,000 kilometers of roads.

The solar panel is coated with silicone, which makes it able to withstand the heavy traffic pressure. But since its opening, solar panels have been loosened or broken into small pieces. In May 2018, cracks caused by wear and tear could not be repaired, and a 90-meter-long road had to be demolished.

Even though the resin coating is strong enough to prevent large drilling rigs from crushing the solar panels, the noise generated by driving on it is so great that local residents have requested to reduce the road speed limit to 70 km / h.

Noise and poor maintenance are not the only problems facing Waterway Solar Highway.

The goal of this solar highway is to generate about 150,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, which is enough to provide lighting for up to 5,000 people a day. It is a pity that the ideal is very full and the reality is very skinny. The power generated in 2018 was less than 80,000 kWh, and it was less than 4kWh by July 2019.

Facts have proved that there are several problems with this goal. First, Normandy has not been a sunny place in history. Caen, the capital of the region, has only 44 days of sunshine each year, and even the sky on the day of the unveiling of the solar road in 2016 was gray. Secondly, thunderstorms also destroy circuit systems. But even if the weather is normal, the design of the solar panel does not seem to capture sunlight effectively.

The simple reason is that when the solar panel is facing the sun, the efficiency is the highest, so usually the solar panel will tilt with the sun. However, since this project needs to balance roads and solar panels, all of its solar panels are tiled on the road. So even under the limited sunlight in this area, the Waterway Solar Highway is further restricting itself.

"If they want this solar power system to work, they should first stop their cars on it," commented Jed Lizka, vice president of the Energy Transformation Corporation (CLER), which promotes renewable energy.

Even falling leaves can hinder power generation. The leaves that fell on the road covered the solar panels, which affected the efficiency of power generation.

Jedlizka said that Colas, which is responsible for the construction of this solar highway, carried out the project too hurriedly before fully investigating the cost-effectiveness of the project. Jedlizka said bluntly, "This confirms that it is completely absurd to want to replace existing, more profitable solutions (such as solar panels on the roof)."

There is neither efficiency nor profit, and the world's first solar highway officially fails.

Other solar roads worldwide are also facing various challenges. A US solar road costing as much as 6.1 million US dollars suffered a similar fate as France. Solar panels are easily damaged and have low power generation efficiency. Even if the solar panels can work normally, they can only supply power to a small drinking fountain and electric lights in the bathroom. An electrical engineer described it as "a complete, epic failure". In 2018, one week after the opening of China's Jinan photovoltaic highway, its solar panels were stolen.

However, there are exceptions, and the prospects for solar bike lanes in the Netherlands look better. The operating company behind a 70-meter-long solar bicycle lane in the Netherlands said that the results of the 2018 operation exceeded expectations. They initially hoped to produce 50 to 70 kWh per square meter of electricity per year, 73 kWh per square meter in the first year, and 93 kWh per square meter in the second year. The Netherlands also launched two roads covered with solar panels this year-one is a 50-meter road near Amsterdam-Schiphol Airport and the other is a 100-meter bus lane a few kilometers away from Rotterdam.