I was totally ready to throw my money at this product until you pointed out that there wasn't any blockchain support. Literally a deal breaker for me. Bummer...
Caption in the newspaper photo: "Tarpaulins protect the modules from the sun" Seems to be a fundamental design flaw if your solar panel installation can't withstand exposure to sunlight
the problem with dysfunctional solar installations is, that they will produce electricity under sunlight. If there is a major problem with the installation (magic smoke escaped, lack of insulation, risk of short-circuits, risk of people touching conductors) covering up the whole story is the best thing to do. Perhaps they also hope that nobody will look under the cover if they don't already know what's under there...
@@uwezimmermann5427 This is just another fundamental design flaw with this installation. A properly designed system would include some fault tolerance and allow safe isolation of faulty panels to enable repairs and continued operation of the rest of the system. If your only option for fixing faults is to cover all the panels with tarpaulins then you need to go away and do a major rethink your design.
@@stephenbell9257 that's not completely true. Most installations and most commercial modules do not include any protection on the module level and not on the string level either. Only modules with integrated power optimizer have today the ability to be remotely or automatically switched off. The installation itself of course has these capabilities then with safety switches before and/or inside the inverter. This is a partly open concern still with fire brigades, because in the case of a fire, bare conductors between modules - or in the case of broken modules between the cells - may be exposed. There are commercial thinfilm modules available today, which alone can produce voltages above 100 V which might be lethal if you just get in contact which the bare wires.
Translation of the German news report @10:54 And now to the special bike-way. It generates electricity, absorbs noise and makes ice melt. Today, federal environment minister Svenja Schulze christened the lane in Erftstadt - naturally fitting on a bike. "It really is very innovative, it is a great project, and that is why it is my please to be here - even in the rain." For the politician it was a home fixture, having been science minister here in North Rhine-Westphalia. My colleague Linda Lux got to try out the lane in advance. The first bicyclists already dabble on the very special bike-way - and even on four wheels driving is neat. The residents of Erftstadt are stoked about the solar bike-way. "You can drive really well, you don't get stuck... It's just good to drive." "If this generates electricity, then that is good." "Very sensible - dead asphalt driveways could be used with solar this way." And precisely that is the idea behind the first solar bike-way in Germany. Most people only know photovoltaic panels from a distance, when installed on rooftops. Bust this solar farm is significantly more robust, and is stuck to the ground over roughly 200m². Everybody may and should be able to walk on it. Pioneering is how the Donald Müller-Judex, founder of a company seated in Berlin, describes it. The company specialized on innovative mobility. In a video-interview, he explains how he came up with the idea: "I was driving on lonely, sunlit bike-ways for 3 days and then thought to myself 'Hey, there's enough room here, also enough sunlight. Why not use the roads?' A smart road in the way we envision it is already planned in China." If he could decide, electric cars could soon be charged this way, but that are dreams of the future. What is real now on the other hand is the 90m long bike-way in Erftstadt being connected to the public power grid and can generate enough electricity per year to cover four single-family homes. Financial support of over 784.000€ was given by the federal environment ministry for the test project within scope of the national climate protection goals. "We as a city want to prove that municipalities can generate clean energy - without disrupting the scenery." The disadvantage of the horizontally positioned panels is possible icing in the winter, if water or snow accumulates. But there is a solution for that. "Today, naturally, we have amazing weather. But there are precautions taken for the coming winter months, the photovoltaic site detects when it could get slippy and then gets heated. Which means, even in winter, no one can slip." Maybe this is even cheaper than the usual winter road maintenance. And it seems the first solar bike-way in Germany is also particularly suited for everyday use. Yeah, a bike-way that thinks.
It is even more caused by the availability of subsidies for study and installation of renewable energy sources. That makes greedy people take the cash.
@@stephanspielmann240 just putting together female, politician and science....geez....the chances of that working...any precedent, any success story with all 3 factors?
I think what may attract politicians to this rubbish is the fact roads are in the domain of government. They are something tax dollars have to be spent on anyway so it's a fairly obvious target for "greenification" even if it's not practical or feasible.
Cars also bring in a lot of tax revenue here in Sweden. With younger generations less inclined to own a car, the politicians might be trying to boost public perception of cars and roads in order to protect that revenue stream. We can probably also look forward to even higher electricity taxes as well as "improved" metering of it, as BigClive has spoken of.
@@EEVblog it must have snowed between November and March! Yes, it does snow, the linked page shows weather data from the last year from that region. Yellow/dark blue is max and min temperature and light blue precipitation. January/February 2019 there must have been snow. www.wetter.com/wetter_aktuell/rueckblick/deutschland/erftstadt/DE0002657.html?sid=10502&timeframe=1y
Man, it's like these people never saw empty, unused rooftops in their lives ... just the streets, which are used by pedestrians, cars, bikes, and even by stray dogs for sheeeting.
Actually, Germany is making huge efforts to push roof top solar installations, along with going to "extremes" cutting energy use. The goal is to have solar on every roof, and 100% renewable energy. I'm not sure if any other country has such an ambitious plan?
Fix tilt utility scale solar is just as awful a proposition in Germany as laying them flat on the road. As a northern latitude country that has peak energy demand in cold winter months, any solar installation makes little senses as at produces virtually zero during Dec, Jan, Feb.
Yes, but in Wintertime they are changed into heaters! So in sunny summer you produce and in cold winter you use... so that part of the road would be more-or-less snowfree. ... (in summer)
@@elvinhaak The amount of energy needed to melt snow is staggering. If the physics on heating roads to clear snow worked, we'd be using flamethrowers instead of snowplows already.
Do you think governments would increase my bank balance for 'Solar Transport' the system is based on covering the roofs of lorry's, train carriages, and other larger roofed vehicles with solar panels that charge battery packs providing power to electric motors and reducing the amount of fossile fuel needed to provide momentum. At least this system should be able to last a little longer and not require weeding like the German system.......
Others people money (aka tax money) at work. Politicians never disappoint. She was a long time science(!) minister before now taking “care” of our environment.
@@GhillieHunterz I consider moving away from unsolved issues (nuclear waste) not the worst decision. This is not what we should continue to pass to our children.
@@weltbestevideos used fuel can be stored inside mountains until future use. It is unresponsible to disregard a technology when the alternatives are much worse (all that coal and gas).
@@weltbestevideos we should get serious about a new generation of nuclear technology including waste storage and reprocessing. If you're worried about safe storage for a million years it ain't all that radioactive is it? Solar/wind sucks for base load. Nuclear excels for that. Gas is easy to turn on and off for peak demand. Maybe we could divert some solar roadway dollars to viable energy storage r&d to utilize unreliable solar/wind etc.
The idiocy of these solar roadways is so obvious in every video where you see open roof space and land right next to the installations. Until every roof and parking lot is covered with solar panels, there's absolutely no point in even investigating solar roads. The fact you have to make them durable enough for cars to drive on them and that they are perfectly flat instead of angled towards the sun are two critical points that kill the idea immediately.
Those idiots will never learn that solar panels in the road is fundamentally flawed. Edit: From the German part I understand this German failway also has heaters in it to melt snow. Would be funny it where those that malfunctioned and coocked it.
That is very unlikely. The panels would not generate enough power to heat a surface that large to temperatures that would cause it to burn or even smoke. The issue more likely is in some interconnect or in electronics when they are present. The power of a road section fed to a small interconnect with dirty contacts could cause this.
@@Rob2 The sun in German summer can melt asphalt at 60°C add to that the failing heaters, put it all under glass so the heat can't properly escape and most plastics will start to fume.
EEVblog What's worth noting is that the solar roadway idea does not appeal to private individuals or corporations, but politicians, who have a need to show how well-informed, tech-savvy, and far-sighted they are, but these attributes are rarely seen among them. Even a cursory search for solar roadway would show how bad an idea it is, so it makes the perfect scam, and it would not surprise me the slightest if we see them keep popping up all over the world.
These solar roadways give me a strong feeling of the Simpsons episode where Springfield is going to invest in the transportation of the future: monorail
@Evil Gremlin ... to some extent, under the right circumstances, in (very narrow) niches. There are very large overlaps with busses and trams in terms of capacity and speed - and both of these are usually way cheaper to build and operate and far easier to integrate into a larger network.
An even better idea: We could mount solar panels on wind turbine rotors. Does anybody know where I can collect my million bucks in concept-study subsidies?
@@YouDonkeyfu Or the city where they built the solar-smokeway, they should've invested the money in a 2 week "Kirchweih" (literally a very small Oktoberfest), or do other cool stuff with it.
Like I said in the Solaroad video, I still think solar road might work for bike way and sidewalks. It'll need to withstand much less abuse than a road, but we still have enough of those surfaces to have it generate a meaningful amount of power. Germany is trying to transition to renewable regardless of cost, so it's all going to be subsidized anyways.
I came up with the idea of a solar road way when I was only around the age of 9... but shortly after that, I slipped with my bike on some ice and was like: "screw solar roadways, they'll never work properly..." I'm 20 now...
As much as solar roadways might not work...basing workability off an unrelated incident when you were nine is hardly a way to make decisions about things. Your logic there is about like saying you once thought about air flight but jumped and sprained your ankle and were like, "screw airplanes, they'll never work properly..."
@@frequencydecline5250 thinking about airflight, jumping and spraining my ankle is completely different from slipping and falling on a road. It only showed me that something that adding ice to something that's already less grippy than asphalt might become a serious issue... Jumping and spraining my ankle only shows that that specific technique might not work for flight.
@@antalz Well... I can't really say for sure (due to the quantum physics at hand) but yes... I could have been... though I think that I'd have tested it out, noticed how it had failed and put it in a drawer to be forgotten... Though I did have a relative big amount (for a 9 y/o) of technical and electronic know-how at that age, it would nowhere be near enough to make a working solar roadway "tile"...
@@VulpeculaJoy Yes but, as i am a fan of resurrecting failed concepts and make them work, how about actually analyzing the problem and presenting a solution (to make solar roadways at least work).
@UCZBaopmSm0XElV8mb1X6b_Q You, my friend, have not understood my point. Solar road ways are possible and they can most definitely deliver power but are they worth the investment? Probably not, do i still want to build a solar roadway that can produce power under normal road conditions? Most definitely yes. You see, i don't care how many people failed to build a working one, everything is possible, so is the idea of a highly durable self cleaning photo voltaic module. to the piezo electric elements, don't tell me that they use a part of a vehicles kinetic energy, i would be more interested in them being integrated into solar modules for the roof but they already exist (as far as i know, scientists used composition of elements, to create a crystalline structure, that releases electrons when being shot at with photons and when being exposed to a change in pressure) , the idea isn't new. Oh and to the enormes amount of space , it is not enough, at least for Germany. Germany has a surface area of about 0,357 billion square meters. However, Germany will need 9,5 times as much surface area in form of solar modules to make up for the increasing need of electricity due to electrification of the transportation vehicles and due to the shut down of all oil-, coal and nuclear power plants.
@@Enthropical_Thunder You're off by a factor of 1000, Germany is 357 billion square meters. If we just covered just 50% of Germany with solar panels, we could power the world.
@@Enthropical_Thunder Everything is possible, but only a few things actually happen. Piezoelectric materials may produce a lot of voltage (for large forces, thousands of volts), but they generate very little current (nano- to microamps) during a cycle. At best, you recover only a tiny, miniscule amount of power from the car rolling over it, and since that energy came from gas anyway, all you have built is a gas-powered electrical plant, only more intermittent and at a ludicrous cost for its rated power. It would be literally cheaper for you to just hook up a gas-powered engine to a generator and get your electricity directly from that. Ultimately, the reason why solar roadways is a dead end is because there's no compelling reason why a solar cell needs to be underneath a road surface in the first place. There's no advantage to that, only problems. It doesn't work any better in that application, and yet such a step introduces many problems that don't occur with conventional solar panels. No, the small size of Germany is not an excuse to engage in this kind of stupidity. Even if you cover Germany with solar roadways, you'll still fall short of your electricity needs by your own admission. Until you have plucked the low-hanging fruit of covering your roofs with solar panels, you have no business going to solar roadways.
Just think what a nice shaded walk/bikeway they could have had for a fraction of the price if they spent that money on making a roof over the path with panels on it.
Brilliant. Germany decommissioned all their nuclear reactors and now have the most expensive electricity in Europe. They also are having to increase the use of environmentally bad electricity generation, which by the way produce radiation pollution.
... and we are buying tons of electricity from countries around us who still have nuclear plants. And we endanger the whole European grid with spikes in energy when there is a lot of wind and sun. But thankfully, it will all crash and burn in a not too distant future. Darwin will take care of this.
Having taken several classes on innovations management on german universities, I can asure you, Dave won't run out of topics for his videos. There are so many people in those classes that have not the slightest idea about natural science or engineering. So many of those award winning "awesome" ideas are just "indiegogo" mock-up bullshit. The worst thing is... as soon as you try to convince them that those things are not going to work, you're the bad guy that's not "creative". Thank you very much. I've got better things to do ... like commenting on 8 month old videos *sarcasm smiley*
Somebody needs to stop this madness, they even think to install these in Tampere Finland.. Summer you dont need much energy here, only winter times its highly needed and then there is not much light at all and roads are covered in snow.
As my advisor used to say a month in the lab can save an afternoon in the library. Reading what has gone before will mean you run down fewer blind alleys.
I wish more countries made solar roadways, so that you could make more videos about solar roadways. Although I hope they come up with more BS to bust in the future.
The snow plows out here in Wisconsin use metal blades - they would destroy or peel those up in short order. Can't believe they would suggest that even a synthetic snow plow blade wouldn't just ride on the top and leave all the recessed areas packed with snow and ice. Ridiculous to even suggest they would work anywhere it snows.
Oh yes, I wish to have a solar road that directly turns the energy into an inductive field and thus powers the electric cars that drive on it. Like, all for free! OK, we'd need 375% efficient solar panels for this (if that is even enough), but nobody will notice the power line that's going to it. We'll just say it is so that the solar road can put the excess power into the grid.
US/Australian road sign in thumbnail is a fail. Germany uses a variant of the standardised road signs such as red triangles for warnings. Note that exact colors vary by country.
at 12:59: 784.000 Euro in subsidies were given by the (german equivalent of) EPA and it can power up to 4 households, so it's around $220000 per household.
Oh no, and just a few km away from were I live (the company, not the roadway). That's stupid but most people are impressed by big numbers. 16.000 kWh pre year sounds a lot, but it is about 3000W to 4000W of Solarpower on an 90 by 2 meter (180 qm) area for 150.000 Euro. Mostly it's the "Don't bother me with facts, I already have my opinion" thing I assume ... Thanks for the video.
Hydrophobic means water-repelling. It probably uses a nano structure that suspends the water droplets over the surface. Usually this means it's self cleaning as well. I got a feeling this won't be self cleaning though.
@@EEVblog well only in one federal state but yeah. Let us say our ministers have not been the best lately. Especially in science and education. Seeing the current state is somewhat sad but at least there is hope for a change in the near future. Let us not give up yet :)
7:56 Well, not here in Finland - they've got serrated metal edges (around an inch wide and deep), and you can see the "toothmarks" on the road (or sidewalk) surfaces for years :D
Same in Germany (or Austria where I live). Besides: it really doesn't matter. The point is, that a snowplough needs to be hard such that the plough moves the ice even if it is frozen to the ground and not the other way round. You need some hard material to do that. Plain and simple.
@@kallewirsch2263 I guess people like those must think that you just have to believe in it enough, and then it'll be all good (and feasible and all that other BS they claimed)...
You guys remember when EEVblog use to take apart electronics and talk about the design and engineering instead of mocking people who are too unintelligent to understand why they are being mocked?
No, pleaso no, no, no. NOOOOOOO It was fun to see idiots throwing money at solar roadways. Same with China- it was fun, but in the end I was just- meh, whatever. Things became eye brow raising with France and Holland. I mean being German and therefore part of the EU I accept that my country essentially pays most of the EUs bills. I completely support the flow of money to the middle of nowhere, with population of a couple thousand. Because you can trace those sums and in most cases the money goes into restoring historic buildings, building parks, streets, you name it. A positive development fund. However, sometimes I think the people responsible for redistributing the money are good with simple math, but otherwise complete idiots. With France and the Netherlands it's the same project done in double with plans for more. Even though they got negative results. And now my home country? I mean quite a lot of people in the public service here are just nuts. WIth an IQ of 75. But we were so good with keeping discipline in the economy. There were some faux pas, but generally you could see the "why", even though you didn't agree with them. And now? Who was the el stupido with this brilliant idea?...... Not enough some idiots got rid of the safest and most efficient energy providers (as in nuclear pp) the same idiots would you also have half the earth dug up and poisoned just to have them driving their own "green" prius and parkng it on a solar panel and regularly smelling their own farts. Green washing in the name of the "climate protection initiative"
When examining a German video, there are some special laws that apply, which you should check are being followed to the letter. Firstly, the website must have an impressum, with information about how to contact the company. Secondly, they must follow the GDPR which means they must inform you and give you options if they are collecting any information about you or using cookies, etc.
Structurally, small tiles make more sense than large slabs. It’s quite common to see broken paving slabs (e.g. if a lorry has driven over a paved area), but if an area is paved with bricks it’s very rare to see a broken brick. So each individual solar paving brick will probably be structurally strong. Of course, as with anything in engineering, there is a trade off between upsides and downsides, and in this case the downside is, as you pointed out, the complexity of the extra interconnections you need. And because a paved area using small bricks gets its strength and resilience from the bricks being able to move slightly relative to each other, these interconnections need to be flexible. Look at a bus stop lay-by paved with bricks, and you will see that this movement can be considerable from the forces involved when large vehicles brake, all at the same place.
Speaking of solar roof tiles. Those tiles imitate materials not used where I'm from. So if you wan't to make your roof to stand out, why not just put normal PV panels? and they are cheaper.
News Flash:.... major advancement in solar roadways. They now have the capacity to generate enough power to fry themselves! C'mon Dave... how did you miss pointing out this major advancement!
Until solar roadways can be installed by pouring an asphalt-like or concrete-like material onto the prepared roadbed, last as long as an asphalt-like or concrete-like material, can be tread-upon like an asphalt or concrete road with similar traction properties, and produce more electrical power over their lifespans than the extra cost associated with placing them costs, then solar roadways simply won't pay off. Traditional materials are selected because they're durable, generally locally available, and are *cheap.* If the road isn't cheap then it's already a nonstarter.
TWX1138 Ever heard of paving stones, the road material of choice from the Roman empire until the early 20th century? It's not a liquid petroleum product but very well tested. Now the hard part is making these complex tiles as reliable as pieces of rock without increasing the price beyond that of a rock plus the net electricity production.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 Paving stones are not suited to high speed travel even when they're perfectly laid and have suffered no subsidence or drift. Paving stones also frequently suffer in climates with freeze and thaw cycles that affect the surface, as water heaves them when it freezes. A typical American Interstate Highway features eleven inches or around 28cm of concrete for thickness, often laid out to in a form the entire width of a lane, and longer down the length of the road than a car length. Urban concrete roads like those found in the San Francisco Bay area are a carlength long and sometimes span half of the roadway across. Even roads built to these standards suffer from potholing and the freeze/thaw cycle. Anything with smaller segments will fare proportionally worse, including small solar bricks. For the road to wear well the pavers need to be huge. To be huge they basically need to be pour-in-place.
Solar roof tiles is another of those things that SOUND like it should work, but it doesn't because of complexities in implementation. A roof needs to be weather-tight, and so does a solar system, but a solar system requires a large number of interconnections between components that also need to be weather-tight. Trying to make a single system that acts as a weather-tight building surface and a weather-tight solar collector makes the result far more complex than just taking a conventional roof structure and putting a solar collection system on top of it. Because of that added complexity, the two-system approach will always have a better price-performance ratio.
"The surface is made of safety glass that breaks into small fragments upon destruction" ... unlike normal, non-safety glass which... breaks into small fragments (called shards) upon destruction...
Dipl. Ing. (FH) Is a degree you get thru a school (Fachhochschule) in a short amount of time in Germany. It's not comparable with a master from a university. Dipl. Ing (FH) is the "cheap" one, here in Germany.
optical illusion. the cells cover the whole tile. The raised bits are merely acting as lenses when looked at, thus the "lack of cell" in the raised bit.
I dont get it. These guys went trough academia and have a master or even a phd degree but they fail to do some basic calculations or even take a look what the problems are with the other companies? I mean they are simply ignoring everything. This is not what you are taught in academia. In the german video they even say that heating the road in winter is cheaper then conventional snow cleaning. What the? they are a shame for all engineers who work hard every day to build good products! I'm really embarassed myself, as I'm a Dipl.Ing. too.
Wow! Your video even has Svenja Schulze in it... she is about as clueless as your Pauline Hanson. Beauty! Thank you for highlighting the idiocy of our politicians, ve deserve it ;-)
The solar flipping road people dont seem to notice the light / Power pols lining the road. You could put 400 W of solar cells on the top of the polls and connect them directly to the electric grid. They would be above the tree's ect and could be angled in the correct direction .
I say get rid of the poles and put the cables underground. Looks better and a huge saving on maintenance costs. No more pruning trees to keep them away from the power lines.
That part actually makes sense ...for something people _don't_ constantly rub off: "hydrophobic" means water doesn't "stick" to the surface in droplets but instead forms little spherical beads which easily run down slopes. You _can_ in fact produce such effects via nano-structuring the surface and even buy "lotus paint" for your exterior walls. In case it isn't obvious tyre rubber and 40t massages don't go well with this kind of surface coating.
@@Photoloss Hydrophobic surfaces can get dirty without water. Then the water won't clean. Hydrophobic doesn't mean oil repellant for example. Or metal powder or dirt.
@@ednamekp3616 Some decent rain (which Germany certainly gets) should still wash away anything without inherent adhesive properties. Not sure about oil but the mechanical force of the moving water droplets should be enough to dislodge most powders. Again, assuming the grime does *not* get squeezed into every nook and cranny so not defending lotus roads in any way. The underlying concept also works on oil and potentially even full-on adhesives as the basic idea is to simply make the fluid stick more to itself than to the surface, I have no idea whether there is a commercially viable implementation which works on both oil _and_ water though.
@@Photoloss There should be omniphobic surfaces. That's why I emphasized on inability of hydrophobic surfaces' complete bloackage of foreign material/wetness
@@Photoloss But yeah I think there is some truth about what you said. I'm not sure, but I think water can clean particles without wetting the surface. It still leaves out oil. Or anything that water can't clean
I took the liberty and translated the German TV clip to the best of my abilities: Announcer: "And now we take a look at a special bicycle path. It produces electricity, absorbs noise and melts ice. Today, Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze officially opened the path in Erftstadt. And she did so on a bicycle." Schulze: "It's really very innovative. It's a fantastic project and that's why it's my pleasure to be here today. Even in the rain!" Announcer: "A home advantage for the politician. She was Science Minister here in Northrhine-Westphalia. My colleague already had a chance to test the path." Reporter: "The first cyclists are already driving on the special bicycle path. Even four wheeler are doing well. The locals are enthusiastic about the bike path. " Elderly Lady: "Because you can drive so well on it and you don't get stuck. It's just a nice drive." Cyclist: "If this produces electricity, it's alright, isn't it?" Elderly lady #2: "It makes a lot of sense, even "dead" asphalt roads could be used in a solar kind of way." Reporter: "And that's exactly the idea behind the first solar bike path in Germany. Most people know PV elements from a distance, from building roofs. But this solar system is much more robust, attached to an area of 200 m² with an adhesive. Everyone can and should drive and walk on it. Donald Müller-Judex thinks this ecological bike path is leading the way. He is the founder of a company in Berlin. It focuses on innovative mobility concepts. In a video interview, he explains how the idea came to be." DMJ: "For three days, I drove along lonesome, sunny, rural roads. And I thought to myself: there's enough space here and sunshine, too. Why not use the roads? A smart road, as we imagine it, is already being planned in China." Reporter: "If it was up to him, even EVs could be charged this way. But for now, that's only science fiction. The 90 m bike path in Erfstadt is real. It's connected to the municipal power grid. It can produce enough energy for four single family homes in a year. A subsidy of 784k € was granted by the Federal Environment Ministry for the test project, following the national climate preservation initiative." Margret Leder (city official): "As a commune, we want to show that cities can produce clean energy, without disturbing the rural scenery." Reporter: "The disadvantage is the potential of icing during the winter, when water or snow accumulates. Though for that scenario, there's a solution. The weather is fantastic today, but even for the coming winter months, preparations have been made. The PV system senses when icing could occur and will be heated. This means, during winter, nobody will slip. According to the manufacturer, this [heating] is cheaper than the regular winter services. The first solar bike path in Germany seems to be suitable for everyday life, too." Announcer: "A bike path that thinks, very practical." - The End
I'm eager to see how they're going to make curved roads using only large square elements. Do they always lay the next element flat against the previous (edge wise) and discretize the whole road Or do they have joints everywhere ?
I think solar roof-tiles are rubbish, too. But Solarpanels could be made in such a way that they integrate more seamlessy on a roof. They just shouldn't be trying to mimick tiles.
The weeds growing between the tiles is a definitive proof that solar energy CAN be harvested on these roads
Biodegradable organic solar panels right there!
Grow sugar beats in the median strips and ditches, then ferment the sugar into ethanol. "Solar Energy" simple as ever. ;)
I guess that solar panels overheating and smoking is snow-melting feature :p
Next week they make Bio-Diesel from those weeds..;-)
@@Psibr1 Then you end up attracting animals to the median in larger numbers, meaning more roadkill and serious accidents involving animals.
When people complain that Dave is "beating a dead horse", this shows that this horse just refuses to die so it needs more beatings.
Beatings aren't helping.
_Time to break out the artillery._
Need to go full H-bomb on this one
When I will see you in HL3, Gordon Freeman?
German politicians will even buy a dead horse!
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
in order for solar roads to work we need flying cars first.
Thats a great idea. And maybe we can build the road at an angle then to be more efficient xD
great, putting a car in the sky where planes are when it's can happily use wheel for greater fuel economy.
planes? those are just mobile car parks.
people cant even drive on the land how would it be better in the air
Except for that one guy who knows his car drives around with the low fuel light on and drops out of the sky into someones house lol
I was totally ready to throw my money at this product until you pointed out that there wasn't any blockchain support. Literally a deal breaker for me. Bummer...
Totally
Don't give up so easily - it might still include some cutting-edge AI...!
Its smart tiles technology with IoT integrated...
But it goes to 11.
All the lost mining potential is absurd. Clearly a lack of sight on their part.
Caption in the newspaper photo: "Tarpaulins protect the modules from the sun"
Seems to be a fundamental design flaw if your solar panel installation can't withstand exposure to sunlight
the problem with dysfunctional solar installations is, that they will produce electricity under sunlight. If there is a major problem with the installation (magic smoke escaped, lack of insulation, risk of short-circuits, risk of people touching conductors) covering up the whole story is the best thing to do.
Perhaps they also hope that nobody will look under the cover if they don't already know what's under there...
@@uwezimmermann5427 This is just another fundamental design flaw with this installation. A properly designed system would include some fault tolerance and allow safe isolation of faulty panels to enable repairs and continued operation of the rest of the system. If your only option for fixing faults is to cover all the panels with tarpaulins then you need to go away and do a major rethink your design.
@@stephenbell9257 that's not completely true. Most installations and most commercial modules do not include any protection on the module level and not on the string level either. Only modules with integrated power optimizer have today the ability to be remotely or automatically switched off. The installation itself of course has these capabilities then with safety switches before and/or inside the inverter.
This is a partly open concern still with fire brigades, because in the case of a fire, bare conductors between modules - or in the case of broken modules between the cells - may be exposed. There are commercial thinfilm modules available today, which alone can produce voltages above 100 V which might be lethal if you just get in contact which the bare wires.
Has anyone done a burnout on one of these solar roads?
I would 100% be interested in seeing the damage from this.
to the tires or road? those cells look really aggressive.
LetterSlayer lol That would be pure sabotage.
damage to roads? what are you talking about? roads dont wear or get damaged, we all know that.
Bruh, that was exactly my comment on the previous video of Dave´s! It must be done! Society needs a reality check of not letting money on the floor!
How about snow chains on stupud solar roadways? That's got to be bad for any road.
Translation of the German news report @10:54
And now to the special bike-way. It generates electricity, absorbs noise and makes ice melt.
Today, federal environment minister Svenja Schulze christened the lane in Erftstadt - naturally fitting on a bike.
"It really is very innovative, it is a great project, and that is why it is my please to be here - even in the rain."
For the politician it was a home fixture, having been science minister here in North Rhine-Westphalia.
My colleague Linda Lux got to try out the lane in advance.
The first bicyclists already dabble on the very special bike-way - and even on four wheels driving is neat.
The residents of Erftstadt are stoked about the solar bike-way.
"You can drive really well, you don't get stuck... It's just good to drive."
"If this generates electricity, then that is good."
"Very sensible - dead asphalt driveways could be used with solar this way."
And precisely that is the idea behind the first solar bike-way in Germany.
Most people only know photovoltaic panels from a distance, when installed on rooftops.
Bust this solar farm is significantly more robust, and is stuck to the ground over roughly 200m².
Everybody may and should be able to walk on it.
Pioneering is how the Donald Müller-Judex, founder of a company seated in Berlin, describes it.
The company specialized on innovative mobility. In a video-interview, he explains how he came up with the idea:
"I was driving on lonely, sunlit bike-ways for 3 days and then thought to myself 'Hey, there's enough room here, also enough sunlight. Why not use the roads?'
A smart road in the way we envision it is already planned in China."
If he could decide, electric cars could soon be charged this way, but that are dreams of the future.
What is real now on the other hand is the 90m long bike-way in Erftstadt being connected to the public power grid and can generate enough electricity per year to cover four single-family homes.
Financial support of over 784.000€ was given by the federal environment ministry for the test project within scope of the national climate protection goals.
"We as a city want to prove that municipalities can generate clean energy - without disrupting the scenery."
The disadvantage of the horizontally positioned panels is possible icing in the winter, if water or snow accumulates. But there is a solution for that.
"Today, naturally, we have amazing weather. But there are precautions taken for the coming winter months, the photovoltaic site detects when it could get slippy and then gets heated. Which means, even in winter, no one can slip."
Maybe this is even cheaper than the usual winter road maintenance.
And it seems the first solar bike-way in Germany is also particularly suited for everyday use.
Yeah, a bike-way that thinks.
This is the result of our society's science illiteracy.
I'm not certain that science literacy is required for this one. You just need plain common sense.
@@stevewhite6252 since when has "common sense" been common? I'm reminded of the Latin word for common: vulgaris (vulgar).
It is even more caused by the availability of subsidies for study and installation of renewable energy sources.
That makes greedy people take the cash.
The female politician was minister for science in that state.
@@stephanspielmann240 just putting together female, politician and science....geez....the chances of that working...any precedent, any success story with all 3 factors?
“You’ve got to have graphene these days” had me rolling Dave lol, great vid
It's all the rage
Blockchain-enabled graphene frame construction with smart microprocessor-controled LED and inductive charging for yor iPhone..
@@gelecopter Not your iPhone, your freaking CAR! Your TESLA!
I did not see evidence of the huge coils that would be required for that.
Those damn old people speeding on the solar roadway with their walkers are tearing it all up!!!!!
solar FREEEEKIIIN roadways*
slow down!! damn walkers!!
I think what may attract politicians to this rubbish is the fact roads are in the domain of government. They are something tax dollars have to be spent on anyway so it's a fairly obvious target for "greenification" even if it's not practical or feasible.
True.
Oh hack yeah! Ben Heckendorn!
Yeah they get a certain amount of funds to spend on "green projects". Thats what always attracts these kind of pseudoscience moneygrabber bootllickers
Cars also bring in a lot of tax revenue here in Sweden. With younger generations less inclined to own a car, the politicians might be trying to boost public perception of cars and roads in order to protect that revenue stream. We can probably also look forward to even higher electricity taxes as well as "improved" metering of it, as BigClive has spoken of.
A pretty efficient test. After just 4 months they already reached the point where they can test the recycling process. Great!
No, you see, the German one was just too effective at generating electricity, couldn't handle it. /s
If the Germans couldn't engineer it right, I doubt anyone can.
"The only thing they haven't done yet is shovel the snow" -- LMAO! I nearly fell out of my chair!
Does it snow in that region?
@@EEVblog I'm sure it will in 2-3 months :-)
@@EEVblog it must have snowed between November and March! Yes, it does snow, the linked page shows weather data from the last year from that region. Yellow/dark blue is max and min temperature and light blue precipitation. January/February 2019 there must have been snow.
www.wetter.com/wetter_aktuell/rueckblick/deutschland/erftstadt/DE0002657.html?sid=10502&timeframe=1y
A very successful monorail salesman at work.
In conclusion mono means one and rail means rail
@@stevewhite6252 they put them on the map
Is there a chance the track could bend?
Coincidentally , that was Solar powered.
@@tech34756 a solar eclipse, the cosmic ballet goes on
With all those weeds, they could now easily claim to save 101% CO2.
Man, it's like these people never saw empty, unused rooftops in their lives ... just the streets, which are used by pedestrians, cars, bikes, and even by stray dogs for sheeeting.
Actually, Germany is making huge efforts to push roof top solar installations, along with going to "extremes" cutting energy use. The goal is to have solar on every roof, and 100% renewable energy. I'm not sure if any other country has such an ambitious plan?
They just have so clean roads :)
@@fredygump5578 And still we are building flat - lifeless roofs. What the fuck is wrong with architects? Built a garden up there or something!
Fix tilt utility scale solar is just as awful a proposition in Germany as laying them flat on the road. As a northern latitude country that has peak energy demand in cold winter months, any solar installation makes little senses as at produces virtually zero during Dec, Jan, Feb.
Yes, but in Wintertime they are changed into heaters! So in sunny summer you produce and in cold winter you use... so that part of the road would be more-or-less snowfree. ... (in summer)
@@elvinhaak The amount of energy needed to melt snow is staggering. If the physics on heating roads to clear snow worked, we'd be using flamethrowers instead of snowplows already.
@@outputcoupler7819 Yes, so it is snowfree in summer... ;-)
Simply extortion and criminal activity, right out in the open, and going unpunished. Hello, World?
Drive on the street of the future, and listen to the sound of egg shells as it pathetically crumbles under the weight of your car!
Worse, trucks will tear the crap out of it.
Do you think governments would increase my bank balance for 'Solar Transport' the system is based on covering the roofs of lorry's, train carriages, and other larger roofed vehicles with solar panels that charge battery packs providing power to electric motors and reducing the amount of fossile fuel needed to provide momentum. At least this system should be able to last a little longer and not require weeding like the German system.......
Others people money (aka tax money) at work. Politicians never disappoint. She was a long time science(!) minister before now taking “care” of our environment.
German politicians taking care of the environment by closing nuclear plants and spending money on the wind-solar-gas-coal combo...
@@GhillieHunterz I consider moving away from unsolved issues (nuclear waste) not the worst decision. This is not what we should continue to pass to our children.
@@NewRSM1994 Well, what is your thought about it?
@@weltbestevideos used fuel can be stored inside mountains until future use. It is unresponsible to disregard a technology when the alternatives are much worse (all that coal and gas).
@@weltbestevideos we should get serious about a new generation of nuclear technology including waste storage and reprocessing. If you're worried about safe storage for a million years it ain't all that radioactive is it? Solar/wind sucks for base load. Nuclear excels for that. Gas is easy to turn on and off for peak demand. Maybe we could divert some solar roadway dollars to viable energy storage r&d to utilize unreliable solar/wind etc.
Gaming Solar Roads, now with RGB LED's
And plenty of misplaced apostrophe's!
Solar Gaming Surface.
I think that 20 year durability rating is if the surface material is stored in a dark hermetically sealed chamber.
and opened after 20 years to see that its actually damaged. so it atleast was in prestine condition for 20 years of course.
The idiocy of these solar roadways is so obvious in every video where you see open roof space and land right next to the installations.
Until every roof and parking lot is covered with solar panels, there's absolutely no point in even investigating solar roads. The fact you have to make them durable enough for cars to drive on them and that they are perfectly flat instead of angled towards the sun are two critical points that kill the idea immediately.
Those idiots will never learn that solar panels in the road is fundamentally flawed.
Edit:
From the German part I understand this German failway also has heaters in it to melt snow. Would be funny it where those that malfunctioned and coocked it.
That is very unlikely. The panels would not generate enough power to heat a surface that large to temperatures that would cause it to burn or even smoke.
The issue more likely is in some interconnect or in electronics when they are present. The power of a road section fed to a small interconnect with dirty contacts could cause this.
I wonder how long before there’s a lawsuit because someone slipped on them?
@@Rob2 The sun in German summer can melt asphalt at 60°C add to that the failing heaters, put it all under glass so the heat can't properly escape and most plastics will start to fume.
@@picobyte
True. But not in march.
EEVblog What's worth noting is that the solar roadway idea does not appeal to private individuals or corporations, but politicians, who have a need to show how well-informed, tech-savvy, and far-sighted they are, but these attributes are rarely seen among them. Even a cursory search for solar roadway would show how bad an idea it is, so it makes the perfect scam, and it would not surprise me the slightest if we see them keep popping up all over the world.
If weeds start to grow inbetween the panels, it must be very green right? 🤣
I heard the monorail guy from the Simpsons when the roadway pitch was being read
Monorail!.....Monorail!.......it's more of a Shelbyville idea......
These solar roadways give me a strong feeling of the Simpsons episode where Springfield is going to invest in the transportation of the future: monorail
Except monorail actually works.
@Evil Gremlin ... to some extent, under the right circumstances, in (very narrow) niches. There are very large overlaps with busses and trams in terms of capacity and speed - and both of these are usually way cheaper to build and operate and far easier to integrate into a larger network.
Batman's a scientist
Politicians do not pay tax, so when they spend money on stupid projects, they do not spend their money.
An even better idea: We could mount solar panels on wind turbine rotors.
Does anybody know where I can collect my million bucks in concept-study subsidies?
Just learn how to fill the forms to get some of that sweet green EU-money.
Instead of spending money on solar roads, spend it on Bratwurst and beer, and throw yourselves a party!
And generate methane.
ya with the money spend on that roadway, i wonder how many months of Oktoberfest could that provide?
huh? this little this time round. Still, an extension of Oktoberfest would always be a good thing.
@@YouDonkeyfu Or the city where they built the solar-smokeway, they should've invested the money in a 2 week "Kirchweih" (literally a very small Oktoberfest), or do other cool stuff with it.
ya, instead they just burn it on a solar roadway
Compatible with Translucent body vehicles, less occupants promotes better efficiency.
Wunderbar.
Thanks for sharing.
Does it sound like money laundering? Such ridiculous idea would be OK for Russia, but EU and US, common!
Never underestimate the ridiculousness of the EU!
I don't think you get it dave!
Solar roadways were never a failure (for the politicians and contractors, that is!).
@Hakim Mohamad and it is always in high demand,.
Like I said in the Solaroad video, I still think solar road might work for bike way and sidewalks. It'll need to withstand much less abuse than a road, but we still have enough of those surfaces to have it generate a meaningful amount of power. Germany is trying to transition to renewable regardless of cost, so it's all going to be subsidized anyways.
I came up with the idea of a solar road way when I was only around the age of 9... but shortly after that, I slipped with my bike on some ice and was like: "screw solar roadways, they'll never work properly..."
I'm 20 now...
same, it's a kid thing, I had same idea as well.
As much as solar roadways might not work...basing workability off an unrelated incident when you were nine is hardly a way to make decisions about things.
Your logic there is about like saying you once thought about air flight but jumped and sprained your ankle and were like, "screw airplanes, they'll never work properly..."
@@frequencydecline5250 thinking about airflight, jumping and spraining my ankle is completely different from slipping and falling on a road.
It only showed me that something that adding ice to something that's already less grippy than asphalt might become a serious issue...
Jumping and spraining my ankle only shows that that specific technique might not work for flight.
To think you could have been the OG Brusaw...
@@antalz Well... I can't really say for sure (due to the quantum physics at hand) but yes... I could have been... though I think that I'd have tested it out, noticed how it had failed and put it in a drawer to be forgotten...
Though I did have a relative big amount (for a 9 y/o) of technical and electronic know-how at that age, it would nowhere be near enough to make a working solar roadway "tile"...
It would be so nice, if they could give the bike path a solar roof.
Cyclists stay dry and the solar cells stay in one piece.
"the delusions of the human race never cease to amaze"
Now that's a quote to remember.
"I only know of two things that are infinite - the universe and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe."
-Einstein
I just had a Eureka moment! Instead of solar cells, we could put piezoelectric cells in roads! :P
As with everthing, there is a cheaper method. Just. Put. Solar panels. On. Your. Freakin. Roof.
@@VulpeculaJoy
Yes but, as i am a fan of resurrecting failed concepts and make them work, how about actually analyzing the problem and presenting a solution (to make solar roadways at least work).
@UCZBaopmSm0XElV8mb1X6b_Q
You, my friend, have not understood my point. Solar road ways are possible and they can most definitely deliver power but are they worth the investment? Probably not, do i still want to build a solar roadway that can produce power under normal road conditions? Most definitely yes.
You see, i don't care how many people failed to build a working one, everything is possible, so is the idea of a highly durable self cleaning photo voltaic module.
to the piezo electric elements, don't tell me that they use a part of a vehicles kinetic energy, i would be more interested in them being integrated into solar modules for the roof but they already exist (as far as i know, scientists used composition of elements, to create a crystalline structure, that releases electrons when being shot at with photons and when being exposed to a change in pressure) , the idea isn't new.
Oh and to the enormes amount of space
, it is not enough, at least for Germany.
Germany has a surface area of about 0,357 billion square meters. However, Germany will need 9,5 times as much surface area in form of solar modules to make up for the increasing need of electricity due to electrification of the transportation vehicles
and due to the shut down of all oil-, coal and nuclear power plants.
@@Enthropical_Thunder You're off by a factor of 1000, Germany is 357 billion square meters. If we just covered just 50% of Germany with solar panels, we could power the world.
@@Enthropical_Thunder Everything is possible, but only a few things actually happen. Piezoelectric materials may produce a lot of voltage (for large forces, thousands of volts), but they generate very little current (nano- to microamps) during a cycle. At best, you recover only a tiny, miniscule amount of power from the car rolling over it, and since that energy came from gas anyway, all you have built is a gas-powered electrical plant, only more intermittent and at a ludicrous cost for its rated power. It would be literally cheaper for you to just hook up a gas-powered engine to a generator and get your electricity directly from that.
Ultimately, the reason why solar roadways is a dead end is because there's no compelling reason why a solar cell needs to be underneath a road surface in the first place. There's no advantage to that, only problems. It doesn't work any better in that application, and yet such a step introduces many problems that don't occur with conventional solar panels.
No, the small size of Germany is not an excuse to engage in this kind of stupidity. Even if you cover Germany with solar roadways, you'll still fall short of your electricity needs by your own admission. Until you have plucked the low-hanging fruit of covering your roofs with solar panels, you have no business going to solar roadways.
Just think what a nice shaded walk/bikeway they could have had for a fraction of the price if they spent that money on making a roof over the path with panels on it.
Brilliant. Germany decommissioned all their nuclear reactors and now have the most expensive electricity in Europe. They also are having to increase the use of environmentally bad electricity generation, which by the way produce radiation pollution.
... and we are buying tons of electricity from countries around us who still have nuclear plants. And we endanger the whole European grid with spikes in energy when there is a lot of wind and sun. But thankfully, it will all crash and burn in a not too distant future. Darwin will take care of this.
A REVOLUTIONARY NEW TECHNOLOGY... for tossing out the taxpayer money!
Having taken several classes on innovations management on german universities, I can asure you, Dave won't run out of topics for his videos.
There are so many people in those classes that have not the slightest idea about natural science or engineering. So many of those award winning "awesome" ideas are just "indiegogo" mock-up bullshit.
The worst thing is... as soon as you try to convince them that those things are not going to work, you're the bad guy that's not "creative".
Thank you very much. I've got better things to do ... like commenting on 8 month old videos *sarcasm smiley*
Somebody needs to stop this madness, they even think to install these in Tampere Finland..
Summer you dont need much energy here, only winter times its highly needed and then there is not much light at all and roads are covered in snow.
As my advisor used to say a month in the lab can save an afternoon in the library. Reading what has gone before will mean you run down fewer blind alleys.
Their website´s down... must be powered from their own Solmove. ROFLLLLLL
Greetings from Germany and thank you for your brilliant tech videos.
I, as a German, am really embarrassed for this.
I wish more countries made solar roadways, so that you could make more videos about solar roadways. Although I hope they come up with more BS to bust in the future.
They are already selling "Buoyancy power stations", basically the perpetuum mobile, grant-aided with taxpayer money. German politicians have no shame.
“...that B-roll nod.”
Priceless!
"Why do solar roads make sense?" They don't. LOL!
wow, this one takes the cake - the road ended up not even being usable as a normal road anymore!
Comming soon: underground solar panels!
if they work on train station roofs, they must work on underground stations too!
The snow plows out here in Wisconsin use metal blades - they would destroy or peel those up in short order. Can't believe they would suggest that even a synthetic snow plow blade wouldn't just ride on the top and leave all the recessed areas packed with snow and ice. Ridiculous to even suggest they would work anywhere it snows.
Oh yes, I wish to have a solar road that directly turns the energy into an inductive field and thus powers the electric cars that drive on it. Like, all for free!
OK, we'd need 375% efficient solar panels for this (if that is even enough), but nobody will notice the power line that's going to it. We'll just say it is so that the solar road can put the excess power into the grid.
Honestly i'm suprised they werent delivered and installed by drones, that would be truely innovative
You trying to understand German is hillarious.
You could ask your forum if you want something translated.
@@6c45pi And people say we cant be funny.
US/Australian road sign in thumbnail is a fail. Germany uses a variant of the standardised road signs such as red triangles for warnings. Note that exact colors vary by country.
11:07 "It is very innovative" former minister of science current minister of the environment FACE PALM OF DOOM
at 12:59: 784.000 Euro in subsidies were given by the (german equivalent of) EPA
and it can power up to 4 households, so it's around $220000 per household.
It was RTL, no wonder they got it wrong, see first pinned comment. The planned cost for the solar installation is EUR 150,000.
thanks for the research and doing the job journalists were supposed to do
I just want solar roadways to have LEDs, so I can sync the RGB with my PC.
In Korea they put a roof with solar cells above their bicycle road and it works.
Oh no, and just a few km away from were I live (the company, not the roadway). That's stupid but most people are impressed by big numbers. 16.000 kWh pre year sounds a lot, but it is about 3000W to 4000W of Solarpower on an 90 by 2 meter (180 qm) area for 150.000 Euro. Mostly it's the "Don't bother me with facts, I already have my opinion" thing I assume ...
Thanks for the video.
That's about a fifth of the 100 W/m2 they claimed. Pretty good actually, considering how stupid the whole idea is.
I haven't noticed any degradation from my roof solar in six years and they have never been cleaned either
Nice! Really close to my hometown. Looks like a good place for a weekend trip ;-)
Hydrophobic means water-repelling. It probably uses a nano structure that suspends the water droplets over the surface. Usually this means it's self cleaning as well. I got a feeling this won't be self cleaning though.
Hydrophobic also means oil loving , it will absorb plenty of oily material to all sorts of fun effects
the minister used to be Science minister, this is so embarrassing,
*facepalm*
@@EEVblog well only in one federal state but yeah. Let us say our ministers have not been the best lately. Especially in science and education.
Seeing the current state is somewhat sad but at least there is hope for a change in the near future. Let us not give up yet :)
7:56 Well, not here in Finland - they've got serrated metal edges (around an inch wide and deep), and you can see the "toothmarks" on the road (or sidewalk) surfaces for years :D
Same in Germany (or Austria where I live).
Besides: it really doesn't matter. The point is, that a snowplough needs to be hard such that the plough moves the ice even if it is frozen to the ground and not the other way round. You need some hard material to do that. Plain and simple.
@@kallewirsch2263 I guess people like those must think that you just have to believe in it enough, and then it'll be all good (and feasible and all that other BS they claimed)...
You guys remember when EEVblog use to take apart electronics and talk about the design and engineering instead of mocking people who are too unintelligent to understand why they are being mocked?
Pepperidge farm remembers
Hydrophobicity means repelling water, like oil. Water won’t wet the surface, but will bead up.
No, pleaso no, no, no. NOOOOOOO
It was fun to see idiots throwing money at solar roadways.
Same with China- it was fun, but in the end I was just- meh, whatever.
Things became eye brow raising with France and Holland.
I mean being German and therefore part of the EU I accept that my country essentially pays most of the EUs bills.
I completely support the flow of money to the middle of nowhere, with population of a couple thousand.
Because you can trace those sums and in most cases the money goes into restoring historic buildings, building parks, streets, you name it.
A positive development fund.
However, sometimes I think the people responsible for redistributing the money are good with simple math, but otherwise complete idiots.
With France and the Netherlands it's the same project done in double with plans for more. Even though they got negative results.
And now my home country?
I mean quite a lot of people in the public service here are just nuts. WIth an IQ of 75.
But we were so good with keeping discipline in the economy.
There were some faux pas, but generally you could see the "why", even though you didn't agree with them.
And now?
Who was the el stupido with this brilliant idea?......
Not enough some idiots got rid of the safest and most efficient energy providers (as in nuclear pp)
the same idiots would you also have half the earth dug up and poisoned
just to have them driving their own "green" prius and parkng it on a solar panel
and regularly smelling their own farts.
Green washing in the name of the "climate protection initiative"
When examining a German video, there are some special laws that apply, which you should check are being followed to the letter. Firstly, the website must have an impressum, with information about how to contact the company. Secondly, they must follow the GDPR which means they must inform you and give you options if they are collecting any information about you or using cookies, etc.
it really is like the movie 'ideocracy' was more of a documentary...dum is taking over
its an instruction manual
@@BrazilianBikini38 It's a warning.
@@emperorfaiz it is intended as a warning by the author...but the left is using it as an instruction manual
Structurally, small tiles make more sense than large slabs. It’s quite common to see broken paving slabs (e.g. if a lorry has driven over a paved area), but if an area is paved with bricks it’s very rare to see a broken brick. So each individual solar paving brick will probably be structurally strong.
Of course, as with anything in engineering, there is a trade off between upsides and downsides, and in this case the downside is, as you pointed out, the complexity of the extra interconnections you need. And because a paved area using small bricks gets its strength and resilience from the bricks being able to move slightly relative to each other, these interconnections need to be flexible. Look at a bus stop lay-by paved with bricks, and you will see that this movement can be considerable from the forces involved when large vehicles brake, all at the same place.
Solar roadways only works if you don't need roads.
Maybe Hill Valley got them to work...
#OUTATIME
Speaking of solar roof tiles. Those tiles imitate materials not used where I'm from. So if you wan't to make your roof to stand out, why not just put normal PV panels? and they are cheaper.
News Flash:.... major advancement in solar roadways. They now have the capacity to generate enough power to fry themselves! C'mon Dave... how did you miss pointing out this major advancement!
Doh!
Who would have thought that we're going to live in a world where saying 'the road caught on fire' wouldn't be a complete nonsense.
Read the title and thought... You have to be f**king kidding me!!!
but keep up the good work.👍
Until solar roadways can be installed by pouring an asphalt-like or concrete-like material onto the prepared roadbed, last as long as an asphalt-like or concrete-like material, can be tread-upon like an asphalt or concrete road with similar traction properties, and produce more electrical power over their lifespans than the extra cost associated with placing them costs, then solar roadways simply won't pay off.
Traditional materials are selected because they're durable, generally locally available, and are *cheap.* If the road isn't cheap then it's already a nonstarter.
TWX1138 Ever heard of paving stones, the road material of choice from the Roman empire until the early 20th century? It's not a liquid petroleum product but very well tested. Now the hard part is making these complex tiles as reliable as pieces of rock without increasing the price beyond that of a rock plus the net electricity production.
@@johnfrancisdoe1563 Paving stones are not suited to high speed travel even when they're perfectly laid and have suffered no subsidence or drift. Paving stones also frequently suffer in climates with freeze and thaw cycles that affect the surface, as water heaves them when it freezes. A typical American Interstate Highway features eleven inches or around 28cm of concrete for thickness, often laid out to in a form the entire width of a lane, and longer down the length of the road than a car length. Urban concrete roads like those found in the San Francisco Bay area are a carlength long and sometimes span half of the roadway across.
Even roads built to these standards suffer from potholing and the freeze/thaw cycle. Anything with smaller segments will fare proportionally worse, including small solar bricks. For the road to wear well the pavers need to be huge. To be huge they basically need to be pour-in-place.
Haha!!! You never go full Brewsaw!! (Im sure spelling is wrong..)
I think it's Brusaw
Those white plastic tiles look like they're at the corners of a much larger module so I'm guessing that's how they interconnect.
Solar roof tiles is another of those things that SOUND like it should work, but it doesn't because of complexities in implementation. A roof needs to be weather-tight, and so does a solar system, but a solar system requires a large number of interconnections between components that also need to be weather-tight. Trying to make a single system that acts as a weather-tight building surface and a weather-tight solar collector makes the result far more complex than just taking a conventional roof structure and putting a solar collection system on top of it. Because of that added complexity, the two-system approach will always have a better price-performance ratio.
"The surface is made of safety glass that breaks into small fragments upon destruction"
... unlike normal, non-safety glass which... breaks into small fragments (called shards) upon destruction...
If this ever does work (tongue in cheek), it would give new meaning to rolling black outs during rush hour traffic hear in Southern California.
Why does everyone on bikes look like they just learned to ride without training wheels 10 minutes ago?!
Emmett Turner Because they are scummy politicians looking for a photo opportunity before crawling back into their bulletproof VIP car.
Dipl. Ing. (FH) Is a degree you get thru a school (Fachhochschule) in a short amount of time in Germany. It's not comparable with a master from a university. Dipl. Ing (FH) is the "cheap" one, here in Germany.
optical illusion. the cells cover the whole tile. The raised bits are merely acting as lenses when looked at, thus the "lack of cell" in the raised bit.
I dont get it. These guys went trough academia and have a master or even a phd degree but they fail to do some basic calculations or even take a look what the problems are with the other companies? I mean they are simply ignoring everything. This is not what you are taught in academia. In the german video they even say that heating the road in winter is cheaper then conventional snow cleaning. What the? they are a shame for all engineers who work hard every day to build good products! I'm really embarassed myself, as I'm a Dipl.Ing. too.
Thanks for the laughs mate, it really picked me up. Keep up the great work.
You missed something important: In the video of the bike pathway they said it was heated in winter!
Wow! Your video even has Svenja Schulze in it... she is about as clueless as your Pauline Hanson. Beauty! Thank you for highlighting the idiocy of our politicians, ve deserve it ;-)
The solar flipping road people dont seem to notice the light / Power pols lining the road. You could put 400 W of solar cells on the top of the polls and connect them directly to the electric grid. They would be above the tree's ect and could be angled in the correct direction .
I say get rid of the poles and put the cables underground. Looks better and a huge saving on maintenance costs. No more pruning trees to keep them away from the power lines.
7:10 So it is both hydrophobic and it will be cleaned during raining :/
That part actually makes sense ...for something people _don't_ constantly rub off: "hydrophobic" means water doesn't "stick" to the surface in droplets but instead forms little spherical beads which easily run down slopes. You _can_ in fact produce such effects via nano-structuring the surface and even buy "lotus paint" for your exterior walls. In case it isn't obvious tyre rubber and 40t massages don't go well with this kind of surface coating.
@@Photoloss Hydrophobic surfaces can get dirty without water. Then the water won't clean. Hydrophobic doesn't mean oil repellant for example. Or metal powder or dirt.
@@ednamekp3616 Some decent rain (which Germany certainly gets) should still wash away anything without inherent adhesive properties. Not sure about oil but the mechanical force of the moving water droplets should be enough to dislodge most powders. Again, assuming the grime does *not* get squeezed into every nook and cranny so not defending lotus roads in any way.
The underlying concept also works on oil and potentially even full-on adhesives as the basic idea is to simply make the fluid stick more to itself than to the surface, I have no idea whether there is a commercially viable implementation which works on both oil _and_ water though.
@@Photoloss There should be omniphobic surfaces. That's why I emphasized on inability of hydrophobic surfaces' complete bloackage of foreign material/wetness
@@Photoloss But yeah I think there is some truth about what you said. I'm not sure, but I think water can clean particles without wetting the surface. It still leaves out oil. Or anything that water can't clean
I took the liberty and translated the German TV clip to the best of my abilities:
Announcer: "And now we take a look at a special bicycle path. It produces electricity, absorbs noise and melts ice. Today, Federal Environment Minister Svenja Schulze officially opened the path in Erftstadt. And she did so on a bicycle."
Schulze: "It's really very innovative. It's a fantastic project and that's why it's my pleasure to be here today. Even in the rain!"
Announcer: "A home advantage for the politician. She was Science Minister here in Northrhine-Westphalia. My colleague already had a chance to test the path."
Reporter: "The first cyclists are already driving on the special bicycle path. Even four wheeler are doing well. The locals are enthusiastic about the bike path. "
Elderly Lady: "Because you can drive so well on it and you don't get stuck. It's just a nice drive."
Cyclist: "If this produces electricity, it's alright, isn't it?"
Elderly lady #2: "It makes a lot of sense, even "dead" asphalt roads could be used in a solar kind of way."
Reporter: "And that's exactly the idea behind the first solar bike path in Germany. Most people know PV elements from a distance, from building roofs. But this solar system is much more robust, attached to an area of 200 m² with an adhesive. Everyone can and should drive and walk on it. Donald Müller-Judex thinks this ecological bike path is leading the way. He is the founder of a company in Berlin. It focuses on innovative mobility concepts. In a video interview, he explains how the idea came to be."
DMJ: "For three days, I drove along lonesome, sunny, rural roads. And I thought to myself: there's enough space here and sunshine, too. Why not use the roads? A smart road, as we imagine it, is already being planned in China."
Reporter: "If it was up to him, even EVs could be charged this way. But for now, that's only science fiction. The 90 m bike path in Erfstadt is real. It's connected to the municipal power grid. It can produce enough energy for four single family homes in a year. A subsidy of 784k € was granted by the Federal Environment Ministry for the test project, following the national climate preservation initiative."
Margret Leder (city official): "As a commune, we want to show that cities can produce clean energy, without disturbing the rural scenery."
Reporter: "The disadvantage is the potential of icing during the winter, when water or snow accumulates. Though for that scenario, there's a solution. The weather is fantastic today, but even for the coming winter months, preparations have been made. The PV system senses when icing could occur and will be heated. This means, during winter, nobody will slip. According to the manufacturer, this [heating] is cheaper than the regular winter services. The first solar bike path in Germany seems to be suitable for everyday life, too."
Announcer: "A bike path that thinks, very practical."
- The End
turn on subtitle for this video and watch the part with the german news again
I'm eager to see how they're going to make curved roads using only large square elements.
Do they always lay the next element flat against the previous (edge wise) and discretize the whole road
Or do they have joints everywhere ?
I think solar roof-tiles are rubbish, too. But Solarpanels could be made in such a way that they integrate more seamlessy on a roof. They just shouldn't be trying to mimick tiles.