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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2023
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With all the solar roadways test projects that have been done over the years that every time the experts say is a complete waste of time and then end up failing completely - I don't assume that everything is taken into account any more. This seems like one of those ideas were the resources could be better spent on a different design.
Though I have not run the numbers - I am just skeptical of this solution. Not saying it wont work - just I don't have high hopes for it to be a good solution at this point in time. It seems to me that solar panels in static places are still needed and are more efficient and can feed into the grid when not feeding a battery. And we should be questioning if this is actually a good idea. We seem to have a lot of ideas that sound good on the surface until you actually run the numbers - yet projects like that still get funding. Especially around supposably greener technology solutions.
Their efficiency (in terms of how much solar energy is converted to electrical) is not that important I don't think. Yeah, more efficient would be better. But ATM cost is the bigger factor. Bring that down that solar becomes more and more viable. Lower cost means we can buy more solar panels - we have lots of places to put them so energy per square foot is far less important that the energy per cost of a cell you can get.
We have a staggering amount of otherwise unused space to put them - on top of buildings, over car parks, and if we really need to over roadways. Hell, there were some interesting projects about putting them over rivers/lakes which has the added benifit of reducing evaporation and increasing the amount of water preserved under them which also goes to help places that are in need of water.
There is a lot of places we could be putting them. On moving trucks and under roads these trucks drive on just seems like the last places we should be considering. I can see a time when solar on cars is useful to extend their range without needing to plug in as much - but that is when solar is cheaper and when we already have enough static solar (and other renewables) as static infrastructure.
You should be watching the generation capacity rather than efficiency.
My roof happens to be incredibly well aligned for solar, and most months I generate more energy than I use. About 1.2 MwH per month. The fact that the panels are "only" maybe 19% efficient doesn't really factor into my reality. The factors that matter are system output, cost, and my usage.
Efficiency helps on the power output per unit time, but better to focus on the end goal rather than the contributing factors. Depending on your location and house design, you might be good to go already, or even a hypothetical 30% efficient system would fail to get you everything you need.