Solar FREAKING Roadways

Phase II Prototype Solar Parking Lot

Pet Friendly!

LEDs

Snow test - Heating elements (not the LEDs!) in the two center panels are activated.

Artist's rendition of interstate. Graphic design by Sam Cornett

Tractor test

Artist's rendition of downtown Sandpoint, Idaho - Home of Solar Roadways. Graphic design by Sam Cornett

Artist's rendition of downtown Sandpoint sidewalk. Graphic design by Sam Cornett

We are excited to announce that Indiegogo has asked us to join their InDemand program: It allows teams to continue raising funds for their projects.

We are very excited about this for many reasons:

We've had numerous requests since our original campaign ended: "Can I still donate?", "Can I still get a Solar Roadways perk?", "I'd love to be a part of this movement", etc. Many people hadn't even heard about Solar Roadways until after the campaign had ended. Now, everyone can join in and become a part of Solar Roadways history.

We're still in Research & Development, so we're not making a profit yet. Therefore, we can still use your help. One of the things on our wish list is to do some more civil engineering (road) testing. We would also love to make some of our own machinery. The more of the production we can do ourselves and the more we can streamline it, the more we can keep costs down. The more money we can raise, the faster we can proceed to make our product available to the world.

We received donations from 165 countries, which is a clear indication that the world is ready for the paradigm shift Solar Roadways will become. We can't tell you what that level of support and encouragement has meant to us.

Since our original campaign, countless supporters have expressed what it means to them to help us spread the word. We need an educational component to create momentum. People tell us that the bumper stickers they put on their cars, the tote bags in their shopping carts, and the pendants around their necks provide a fun and effortless way for them to start conversations with others and we so appreciate that!

U.S. Senator Mike Crapo (R-ID) talks about Solar Roadways

Years ago, when the phrase "Global Warming" began gaining popularity, we started batting around the idea of replacing asphalt and concrete surfaces with solar panels that could be driven upon. We thought of the "black box" on airplanes: We didn't know what material that black box was made of, but it seemed to be able to protect sensitive electronics from the worst of airline crashes.

Suppose we made a section of road out of this material and housed solar cells to collect energy, which could pay for the cost of the panel, thereby creating a road that would pay for itself over time. What if we added LEDs to "paint" the road lines from beneath, lighting up the road for safer night time driving? What if we added a heating element in the surface (like the defrosting wire in the rear window of our cars) to prevent snow/ice accumulation in northern climates? The ideas and possibilities just continued to roll in and the Solar Roadway project was born.

Our latest video - Google's Solve for X Solar Roadways presentation

What if roads and parking lots were solar, fueling enough energy from the sun to power nearby communities as well as electric vehicles? Scott and Julie Brusaw, the inventors/creators have the answer.

Join the conversation and tweet #SOLARROADWAY to have your tweet featured on the GE FOCUS FORWARD website. Go to focusforwardfilms.com/films/30/solar-roadways to see the discussion.

Watch more GE FOCUS FORWARD films at vimeo.com/focusforwardfilms/films.

Diamond Lane Films

DIRECTED AND PRODUCED BY - Michèle Ohayon

DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY - Theo van de Sande A.S.C.

EDITOR - Jamal El Amin

MUSIC - Davy & Yoann Bernagoult

SOUND - Fernanda Starling

RE-RECORDING MIXER - Michael Bard C.A.S.

ADDITIONAL EDITING - Edgar Burcksen, A.C.E.

ANIMATION - Dan Walden, Martin Ehleben

LINE PRODUCER, LA - Joel Sadilek

GRAPHICS - Patrick Bielski

LA PA - Jonathan VU

IDAHO PA - Dave Hussey

Short documentary by Michele Ohayon

In 2009, we received a contract from the Federal Highway Administration to build the first ever Solar Road Panel prototype. During the course of its construction, we learned many lessons and discovered new and better ways to approach this project. These methods and discoveries are discussed throughout this website. Please enjoy and send us any questions that you may have. For Phase I pictures, please visit our Phase I Prototype page.

  This YERT video is featured in their full-length documentary, now being screened across the U.S. For a screening or presentation near you, click on the following "YERT plate":

After successful completion of the Phase I SBIR contract, we were awarded a follow-up 2-year Phase II $750,000 SBIR contract by the Federal Highway Administration beginning in 2011. With this award, a 36-foot by 12-foot prototype parking lot (108 prototype Solar Road Panels) was built and then tested under all weather and sunlight conditions. For Phase II pictures, please visit our Phase II Prototype page.

Scott presented the Solar Roadways at a TEDx Talk in Sacramento on April 16th, 2010. He was given 18 minutes for "The talk of his life" and it went great!

Everyone has power. No more power shortages, no more roaming power outages, no more need to burn coal (50% of greenhouse gases). Less need for fossil fuels and less dependency upon foreign oil. Much less pollution. How about this for a long term advantage: an electric road allows all-electric vehicles to recharge anywhere: rest stops, parking lots, etc. They would then have the same range as a gasoline-powered vehicle. Internal combustion engines would become obsolete. Our dependency on oil would come to an abrupt end.

It's time to upgrade our infrastructure - roads and power grid - to the 21st century.

Short Documentary about Solar Roadways

The basic building block of what has been dubbed by its creators, electrical engineer Scott Brusaw and his wife Julie, a solar roadway. It could one day make for a highway built of 0.4 –square-meter hexagonal panels, a hodge podge of green circuit boards surrounding 36-watts worth of blue solar panels, all covered in thick, bumpy glass for safety and traction.

The idea is to put unused roadway to good use (generating electricity) while also providing an electronic means for lane shifts, driver messages and other utilities. Bonus: solar roadways obviate the need for an electric grid by including a “Cable Corridor” right in the side of the roadway that eliminates the need for power lines running alongside it. And if outfitted with sensors as well the solar highway could transmit real time traffic data or other information of interest. The novel idea has been around for a few years now, bursting back into prominence this summer thanks to a new crowdfunding campaign to support further research and development that garnered $2.2 million before closing on June 20.

Read more http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2014/07/10/hard-road-ahead-for-solar-freakin-roadways/

Official website of Scott Brusaw's Solar FREAKIN' Roadways http://www.solarroadways.com www.facebook.com/solarroadways

Scott presented the Solar Roadways at a TEDx Talk in Sacramento on April 16th, 2010. He was given 18 minutes for "The talk of his life" and it went great!

Everyone has power. No more power shortages, no more roaming power outages, no more need to burn coal (50% of greenhouse gases). Less need for fossil fuels and less dependency upon foreign oil. Much less pollution. How about this for a long term advantage: an electric road allows all-electric vehicles to recharge anywhere: rest stops, parking lots, etc. They would then have the same range as a gasoline-powered vehicle. Internal combustion engines would become obsolete. Our dependency on oil would come to an abrupt end. 

It's time to upgrade our infrastructure - roads and power grid - to the 21st century.

ORIGINAL: Solar Roadways

(Energy) Harvest Festival

ORIGINAL: Traffic Technology International
August/September 2013

Illustration courtesy of Patrick George

The energy produced by vehicles driving on our roadways is a potentially huge source of untapped electricity. Louise Smyth meets the people who will have cause to celebrate if the concept sparks into life

Although the ideas of piezoelectric generation and embedding functionality into roads are not new, the notion of merging the two is novel. We've long embedded technologies in roadways, a case in point being the much-maligned loop detector Meanwhile, we've used piezoelectric materials for numerous applications over the years. So when considering a marriage between the two, a simple question to ask is, can any of the power created by vehicles driving over our roads be harnessed? Answering how this could be achieved is rather more complicated.

Simple thingsA piezoelectric energy harvesting system for roads is relatively straightforward. Vehicles drive over the surface, their tires place pressure on piezoelectric crystals embedded in the road, wíuch subsequently produce a small amount of energy. Multiply that scenario over a stretch of road with many vehicles traveling over the top and thousands of embedded crystals and you can almost envision a day when the lights of the Golden Gate Bridge could be powered by the vehicles driving over it We're not there yet We're at the academic and research stages, although some commercial outfits are taking the tentative steps to forming a compelling business case, as well as selling energy-harvesting equipment designed for roads. The potential would seem to be enormous, but fulfilling it is not without major challenges - something that anyone who's worked in the área can testify. John Gambatese, professor in the School of Civil and Construction Engineering at Oregon State University, is festival one of those researchers. Hot on the heels of Oregon’s successful solar highway deployment, he submitted his Research Problem Statement on energy harvesting for roadways to Oregon DOT at the end of 2012. 

“We leave a lot of energy on the road in different ways,” he says. “Whether it’s the vibration on a bridge or roadway, or the wind produced by the traffic, there’s energy there that can be harvested. It might only be a small amount at each location but when you add it up, it could help to power our traffic infrastructure, our streetlighting, or other electrical requirements we may have.”

So if that goes according to plan, what about selling the surplus back into the grid? 

“For now we’re just trying to develop the technology so we can start collecting energy,” Gambatese says. “Once we do that, we can monitor how much we obtain and then there’s a chance we can optimize the technologies with the goal being to feed electricity back into the grid. Whether or not we’ll have that capability in the next five to 10 years, though, I’m not so sure.”

From research to reality?
The FHWA is funding work on energy harvesting for roads, indicating that it sees some future potential in the concept. The Administration’s Eric Weaver reveals how the testing is being conducted and what the initial results have shown

The Virginia in Tech Transportation Institute (VTTI) presence is a notable in the testing of piezoelectric energy harvesting for roads and is currently involved in a US$1M FHWA-funded project.  The stated aim isn’t to assess commercially available systems but to put a VTTI-developed system through its paces. The research is being overseen by Eric Weaver, a research civil engineer in the FHWA’s Office of Infrastructure, R&D, and an expert in this sector. “We are currently exploring the potential," says a cautiously optimistic Weaver about the technology. “Our initial research indicates that the amount of energy harvested might be modest but could theoretically offset some utility costs or provide power in areas that  are currently inaccessible to the grid.”

Like many people in the field, Weaver foresees any power generated being used only where it is harvested, for th short term at least. "It's meant to provide energy within the energy right-of-way to be used for transportation infrastructure demands,” he continues. “However, depending on the application and the infrastructure demand, excess energy could potentially be transferred back to the grid, provided that the electric grid infrastructure is updated to enable this.

 “Our work has involved a significant amount of analytical modeling, as well as laboratory trial and error with different  geometric configurations of piezoelectric generators and the materials that encase them. Virginia Tech researchers have installed some sensors at two locations in the state, one of which is at a truck weigh station and the other at a full-scale test road called the VA Smart Road."

Interestingly, for comparison purposes, researchers also installed sensors from the Israeli company Innowattech in at least one of those locations.

Although Weaver reveals that the results so far are perhaps not as encouraging as vendors or proponents of the technology might hope, the work is helping to identify teething problems that likey be overcome. “So far in our research, low power output is observed with each axle load application. Part of the reason for this is that the wheel load doesn’t always pass directly over the generator, because they’re centered in the wheel path, where the wheels don’t onsistently track. To mitigate this problem, researchers are exploring other generator geometries that provide more spatial coverage.”

“The sensors have been rugged enough so far to hold up to the traffic loading they have received,” Weaver continues. “A further benefit is that the data from this project has been used to support another study performed for the California Energy Commission to evaluate the feasibility of all piezoelectric generation technologies currently on the market.”

Complete Text: Traffic Technology International August/September 2013 

"Depending on the application and the infrastructure demand, excess energy could potentially be transferred back to the grid"

www.TrafficTechnologyToday.com