From Business Insider:
- Two years after the world's first solar road — the Normandy road in France — was set up, it's turned out to be a colossal failure, according to a report by Le Monde.
- The road has deteriorated to a terrible state, it isn't producing anywhere near the amount of energy it had previously pledged to, and the traffic it has brought with it is causing noise problems.
- Though a US-based solar road has suffered a similarly discouraging fate, a Dutch project has provided a silver lining on the future of solar roads.
Solar roads were promised to be one of the biggest unprecedented revolutions of our time, not just in the field of renewable energy but in the energy sector generally.Covering 2,800 square meters, Normandy's solar road was the first in the world, inaugurated in 2016, in Tourouvre-au-Perche, France.Despite the hype surrounding solar roads, two years after this one was introduced as a trial, the project has turned out to be a colossal failure — it's neither efficient nor profitable, according to a report by Le Monde.The unfortunate truth is that this road is in such a poor state, it isn't even worth repairing. Last May, a 100-meter stretch had deteriorated to such a state that it had to be demolished.
According to Le Monde's report, various components of the road don't fit properly — panels have come loose and some of the solar panels have broken into fragments....
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There was a lot of hype-n-tout around the U.S. company, Solar Roadways, but we didn't even bother to denigrate it.
This kind of stuff is not going to get us to where we need to go.
