Solar-powered intelligent roads

The American public has donated over £1 m to the couple behind Solar Roadways - a revolutionary solar-powered modular road paving system.

Scott and Julie Brusaw have spent eight years developing the solar road panels in their back yard.

The glass panels are robust enough to withstand the pressure from an articulated lorry and designed to be installed on roads, car parks, drives, pavements, cycle lanes or playgrounds.

As well as generating electricity to go into the grid, the toughened glass panels include heating elements to prevent ice, LEDs to show road lines and signage, and a roadside 'cable corridor' to store and treat polluted storm water and house power and data cables.

According to its designers, implementation of the Solar Roadways project on a grand scale would provide ice, snow and pothole-free illuminated roads. If there was danger ahead from a crash, the intelligent road could detect this and warn drivers to slow down.

https://youtu.be/SNMFKKyFU60

An idea to use crystals embedded in asphalt to turn the vibration caused by cars into electricity made headlines in 2008 after engineers at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology claimed their piezoelectric crystals could produce up to 400 kilowatts from a 1 km stretch of dual carriageway.

Little more was heard of the project, but the success of the Solar Roadway crowd funding exercise reflects the appetite for such technology as well as the willingness of the American public to spend their own money in support of entrepreneurs.

Visit the Solar Roadway crowd funding page