Renewable Energy AssociationSolar Trade AssociationAct on Co2
Solar Panel News

Solar Panel Road Built In France

Apparently, a solar panel road has been constructed in a village in Normandy in France that is around 1km in length. It is possibly the first time that solar panels have been used in this way.

Solar panels have been used on a road in France.

Some 2,880 solar photovoltaic panels have been utilized in the scheme and are capable of producing in the region of 280 MWh of electricity on an annual basis. The village where the solar panel road has been built is called Tourouvre-au-Perche that has over 3,000 people living in it.

The “Wattway” road is to be tested over a period of two years with a view to establishing if it is capable of providing sufficient energy to provide power for the village’s street lights. It is believed the scheme has cost in the region of 5 million Euros.

Presumably the amount of energy generated will fluctuate throughout the day with one reason for this being due to the volume of cars that use that stretch of the road as, when a vehicle is going over a solar panel, presumably it will not generate any energy.

A company called Colas is responsible for the project and apparently it is involved in many other solar panel road schemes. It will be interesting to see if this project is a success as, if it is, there are no doubt many, many miles of roads that could be used in that way both in France and in other parts of the world.

We have mentioned about many different uses of solar panels such as being fitted to rucksacks to be used by walkers to generate a small amount of energy that could be utilized to help charge a mobile phone or being used on a shack in a shanty town in South Africa to provide energy for the occupants use. We will keep our readers updated about any other interesting solar panel schemes.

This entry was posted in Renewable Energy and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.

Navigation