The Solar Road: Apparently a Path To Nowhere

Hate to say I told you so, but it looks like solar roads (i.e., roads paved with solar PV), are not going to get off the ground (pun intended).  Of course, the experiment described in this article in Northwestern France, which boasts only 44 days per year of full sun, probably never should have been attempted.

The ideal places for solar are those with plenty of sun (obviously), where it can be installed easily and inexpensively, on ground that has virtually no other use. 

The ideal situation here is embodied in a conversation I had at the Intersolar show last summer with Mark Kingsley, President and CEO of Alion Energy.  After our brief introductions, Mark asked me, “Craig, where, i.e., on what sort of land should solar be located?  You have two choices: a) arable (farm) land, and b) dry, rocky, inhospitable non-arable land, including 1.5 million acres covering 45,000 locations that the EPA has designated as brownfields.  He had made his point.

Alion boasts a unique approach and capability to installing–and cleaning–massive solar arrays.  There are two conventional methodologies for ground-mounting PV: 4 – 6 foot-long ground screws, and pilings that are driven into the earth, both of which require intensive amounts of labor.  Alion extrudes a heavy concrete “curb” (picture a normal city curb–see photo at right), attached to which are the brackets that hold the panels.  It’s all on the ground, rather than in the ground.  Best of all, the robot that cleans the panels rides along the same strip of concrete; this may be the first concept in solar PV that contemplates both the installation and the cleaning in one solution.