A
smart grid of solar roads could reduce pollution, improve the economy,
and have the potential to produce three times the amount of power the US
currently uses. About
an hour south of the Canadian border, in Sandpoint, Idaho, a visionary
couple came up with a ridiculous plan. They decided we should replace
all the asphalt roadways with solar panels, which would drastically
reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and generate clean, renewable
energy.
Turns out, this project is actually far more practical than it sounds.
Scott and Julie Brusaw developed Solar Roadways,
a modular pavement system that uses solar panels with 18.5% efficiency
that can withstand 250,000 pounds, last 20 years, melt snow and ice on
contact, and hold built-in LED lights to warn drivers of oncoming debris
or traffic. Though they've talked about it for eight years, the pair
decided to launch the project on Indiegogo to "see what happened," and
they have been blown away by what did.
"It's spread a lot of awareness about Indiegogo to a whole new group of
people," said Alexis Blais, who manages PR for Indiegogo. "Solar Freakin' Roadways went
viral in a way we've never seen before. To have contributions from
every state [in the US] and all over the world, that doesn't happen
every week -- really interesting to watch."
Those contributions set an Indiegogo record: more than 35,000 people
from 42 different countries (and counting) have funded this campaign.
"I think [this campaign] says loud and clear that the world is ready for solar roadways," Scott Brusaw said.
How solar roadways work
The Brusaws have known each other since they were three and four years
old. Scott remembers being obsessed with his slot car track toy as a
child, which ran tiny electric cars on an electric road. The idea to
actually implement that in real life stuck with him throughout his life
-- he still has drawings of electric grids and roads from middle school.
A short while after Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth came out and global
warming started to become a hot button issue, Scott and Julie were
gardening together one day when she said to him, "Remember that electric
road you've talked about your whole life? Can you make that with solar
panels?"
A snow removal test on the solar panels.
Image: Solar Roadways
He laughed, but the seed was planted. If he could make a case to
surround the panels, it could possibly be done. Scott decided to take a
year off to see if anyone was really interested in the idea of solar
roadways.
"And I've never gone back. We weren't getting paid for this," he said.
"We've had some lean years but that carrot was always dangling right in
front of us, which kept us going."
In 2009, Solar Roadways received two phases of funding from the US
Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration for
development of a paving system that will pay for itself and to create a
prototype parking lot, which they have finished.
The parking lot has 108 solar panels of two variations, which the team
is inspecting to see which works more efficiently. "It's done and
working the way we want, of course there are some blips here and there,
but that's expected," Brusaw said.
The solar panels can withstand 250,000 pounds of weight, which is four
times the legal weight of a semi truck, Brusaw said, and have traction
to stop a vehicle moving up to 80 miles per hour. They won't break or
crack if something crashes on them. The panels, which are the same as
any typical solar roof panels, are encased in a version of
bullet-resistant glass that was tested for many months at the top
materials research institutes at Penn State and University of Dayton.
The base layers are made of 10% recycled glass.
In Idaho, the tests were done in the dead of winter, when the sun
barely cleared the trees. Brusaw guesses the panels in the prototype are
under four hours of direct sunlight a day, which means 1460 hours a
year. Of course, closer to the equator, there is more direct sunlight,
which means more power. But, the roads will generate plenty of energy
anywhere.
The amount of research Brusaw and his team have done is impressive.
This isn't just an idealistic vision for the future. With the Indiegogo
funds, he plans to hire a team of engineers (he's already looking at
resumes) and open an office in Sandpoint. Don't expect the Solar
Roadways team to travel to Silicon Valley for VC funding or open an
office there, either. Brusaw said he's staying put.
The city of Sandpoint wants to retrofit the welcome center parking lot
with these solar panels, as well as a 25-acre airport, Amtrak train
station, sidewalks, and other lots.
"We've had people all over the world tell us 'If you ever open your
parking lot to the public let us know because we will fly there just to
say we got to walk on it,'" he said. "It's going to be big for the
city."
With funding in place for the new team, Brusaw plans to make final
tweaks to the parking lot prototype and have it ready for manufacturing
by the end of the year, installing some real versions of the roadways by
the end of the spring in 2015.
The roads will also have heating elements to melt snow and ice. It's
marketed as a safer alternative to roads. No potholes, no paint, no
repairs.
Solar roadways are also smart roads with electronic LED displays
built-in. Warning signs with LED text to warn people about downed limbs,
animals, and construction can be displayed directly on the road ahead.
And they can also help with power lines and poles. A cable corridor runs
underneath, housing power lines, cable lines, and fiber optics,
replacing the need for telephone poles. It also serves as a
transportation system for stormwater, running it to treatment
facilities.
Long-term impacts
As the technology becomes more advanced, solar panels have gone down in
price and increased in efficiency. In 2012 fossil fuels generated about
68% of US electricity, according to the Energy Information Administration.
Solar was 0.11% of energy generation, and only 5% overall was renewable
energy. If the roadways, which already absorb and reflect exorbitant
amounts of sunlight, are replaced with solar panels, this reduction in
greenhouse gases would have a significant impact.
"With over 20,000 square miles of paved surfaces in the US alone, we
crunched numbers [and there would be] three times more electricity than
the nation uses [if they all switched to Solar Roadways]," Brusaw said.
That doesn't even count sidewalks, basketball courts, bike lanes, and parking lots.
The long-term idea is to replace the power grid with a "smart grid."
Part of this plan is to improve the charging ecosystem for electric
vehicles. Currently there are not many charging stations for the
vehicles, and roadways that could charge anywhere offers a solution to
that issue, and it has the potential to drive the technology into the
mainstream. An electric road could help build the infrastructure for
transporting the power that electric vehicles will need, Brusaw added.
"This will help the planet. It doesn't just help the environment, it
helps the economy. There's something that everybody likes about it,"
Brusaw said.
He wants to scale manufacturing across the world -- and already has had
offers to do so -- but he wants to keep the process local to each
country to improve jobs and have an impact on the global economy.
"It helps everybody's economy, gets the product out, helps the
environment, and doesn't just send all the jobs to sweatshops in the
Pacific Rim," he said. "This could create millions of jobs."
A rendition of downtown Sandpoint, Idaho.
The main hurdles in implementing this
massive infrastructure project mostly lie in who owns the roads. Some
are federally owned, others state, township, or individually. The first
step is the non-critical applications: sidewalks, driveways, parking
lots, and then residential streets with slow-moving traffic.
Although the project has been amazingly successful on Indiegogo, Solar
Roadways has plenty of critics. Many people have pointed out the problem
with costs, durability, and scalability. Brusaw knows it will take
years, but this project isn't based on unproven technology. Tempered
glass and solar panels have been around for years. It's the economics
that will be challenging.
The Solar Roadways team said they will have a better idea of the
overall production cost when their Federal Highway Administration
contract ends in July. However, Brusaw said the road pays for itself
because of the energy savings it generates, how long the panels last,
and the lack of maintenance the panels require compared to traditional
roads.
By the end of the crowdfunding campaign, which was extended until June
20, Brusaw will be ready to move forward with Solar Roadways. His goal
is to have a finished product by end of year, then use the rest of the
money to hire more more people and start building the machinery to make
the panels.
It's a long road ahead -- pun intended -- but Brusaw and team have
clearly struck a chord and made it easy for a lot of people to buy into
the solar-powered smart roads of the future.
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