EEVblog #1233 - The Demise Of Solar Roadways

The inevitable demise of Solar Roadways in France, China, and the Netherlands. But Solar Freak'n Roadways won't go down without a fight!, not that it was ever in the ring, apart from starting this whole boondoggle concept.

#SolarRoadways #FAIL #Solar

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[wvjp]

“For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.”

[foxpup]

Bad Idea: Driving Cars On Solar Panels
Good Idea: Parking Cars Under Solar Panels

[BenHeckHacks]

Most fragile means of producing electricity placed in the harshest location - what could go wrong? #greenWashing

[DeliciousDeBlair]

I'M SHOCKED!!!

Oh wait...

I CAN'T be shocked...

There's no ELECTRICITY!!!

[AaronALAI]

I live a few blocks away from the inner harbor...I'm totally taking pictures!! Just embarrassing that the foundation got bamboozled into such a crummy idea, 100k could do so much more for the city.

[daskraut]

"has failed to meet expectations" why? it did exactly what we expected it to do: it failed.
said it once, say it again: why not roof over parking lots and shit with standard solar panels instead? provides shade in the summer and produces juice.

[Yotanido]

"successfully tested"

It was! The test was successful. The result of the test was, that this is a ridiculously stupid idea, but the test itself was successful. They got a result, after all.

[DarthChrisB]

I have a better idea: Let's make roads CO2-neutral by planting trees on them!

[John_Ridley]

I just don't get why people thought this was a good idea. It's like someone sat down to answer the question "What is the absolute WORST place to put solar panels? Someplace where installation is expensive, regular maintenance will disrupt the most people possible, wear and tear will be astronomical, will have zero ability to tilt the panels for maximum efficiency, will have guaranteed debris and guaranteed extreme loading conditions.
Then said "Let's do that."

[KabukeeJo]

Proof that all the critics of Solar Roadways were right. Would be better to just put solar panels on every rooftop in the nation.

[alexanderthomas]

- “Organic material from trees is damaging these panels!”
- “Cut all the trees and pave everything with concrete and asphalt within a 50-meter radius!”
- “Green energy, yay!”

[pxidr]

I'm french, and I'm pretty pissed off to know how my taxpayer money is wasted in that sort of non-sense projects.

[tubical]

One of our nearby towns had made a wonderful decision serveral years ago: They have one of the biggest "Park and Ride" parking place around (for about 500 cars). it´s flat and the cars exposed to full sunlight most times...they came up with the idea to roof most of the place and put huge solar panels on top of it, some are angeled some are not...
Cars stay way cooler (especially during summer:) and they´re having plenty of electricity to work with now...they also installed car chargers...

[HighestRank]

This goes out to all the ‘power-of-positivity’ people who say :”Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”, & ended up hooked on drugs.

[thewavemaker]

We Germans have a word for this: “Schadenfreude” 😂

[guyh]

And yet they're still installing them like crazy over here in the Netherlands.
Government is paying royally for it as well.

[xjet]

Now you see if they'd taken the output from these solar roadways and run them through a Batterizer things would be a lot different :-)

[Henchman]

I saw the thumbnail and just assumed it was thunderf00t.

[justingreen]

People need to put their time and effort into installing on roofs, and continue improving roof solar panel technology.

[pinkdispatcher]

Transparent concrete is a thing, it is used for façades to allow some light to go through by embedding glass fibers in regular concrete. It is about as strong as normal concrete, but only allows about 2% of the light to go through, so while useful in architecture, it is totally useless for covering solar panels with it. This thing must be something different.