Solar-Powered Bike Lanes/Roads Coming To Holland

April 25th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan

If you know me much at all, you know that I love solar energy and I love bicycling for transportation purposes. Also, you might know that I lived in the Netherlands for 5 months in graduate school. So, yeah, the project I’m writing about here caught my attention.

You may have already heard about some ideas for utilizing solar energy that hits our roadways, since we’ve covered some of these a few times (see: New Technology Could Make Roads a Solar Energy Source; Oregon Launching First Solar Highway in the US; Solar Power Roads: Harvesting Energy from America’s Fields of Asphalt).

Now, this project is a little different than any of those. SolaRoad, by TNO, is a road that really doubles as a solar panel. The specific design and material are yet to be finalized, and a pilot project in North Holland it going to test out some options. The pilot project’s features are such:

“The cycle path is constructed of concrete elements measuring 1.5 by 2.5 metres and contains a glass top layer.”
“Beneath this one cm thick hardened glass layer lie crystal silicon solar cells.”
“In consultation with the partners, the pilot will determine how the energy will be used and how smart ICT applications can enable the energy produced in peak periods (a lot of sun) to be distributed as efficiently as possible for the periods of little or no light.”

The first practical application of the SolaRoad is planned for 2012, and “[t]he aim is for the product to be commercially available within a short time and to develop a suitable and sound business model for it.”

h/t TreeHugger

Images via TNO

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Tags: holland, netherlands, solar bike path, solar road, solar road holland, solar road netherlands, solaroad, solaroad holland, solaroad netherlands

About the Author

Zachary Shahan spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.

JEGATHESH B.E.,

it is very useful to me please send more details to jegabe03@gmail.com
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http://www.bes.co.uk plumbing

This is an awesome and innovative utilization of solar energy. I personally think that it also looks cool. It will help promote the use of solar energy even more.
Anonymous

Calculate the ‘average shade’. Those panels will not be performing. If they were above the traffic they would.

Additionally there’s a problem with a partially shaded panel. If it isn’t isolated with its own dedicated inverter, it pulls down the performance of all the other connected panels.

And I can assure you, the picture you linked is not what I would call ‘bumper to bumper’. That’s traffic moving and very spread out compared to what one often experiences in urban areas. Bumper to bumper is less than one car length between vehicles. Leave more and someone will pull in front of you.

—

Here’s some bumper to bumper pictures for you.

http://www.google.com/search?q=bumper+to+bumper+traffic&hl=en&safe=off&client=firefox-a&hs=5HZ&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=rda5TdrkIPPPiALL2JAV&ved=0CDIQsAQ&biw=1147&bih=761
http://ragtag.wordpress.com/ ragtag

Just wonder how slippy the surface would be. I’m sure they have thought of this but I’ve not sure two wheels on wet glass is such a good idea.
- http://importantmedia.org Important Media Umbrella Acct
  
  yeah, they must have something in place to address that. i’m sure — they are Dutch (i.e. know about bicycling)!
http://ragtag.wordpress.com/ ragtag

You’ve never driven in England, we really get on the bumper
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Anonymous

Excellent! Any technological development that brings attention the incredible versatility of solar power is a good thing in my view. It heralds the day that every home and business is run on solar and wind power.
Anonymous

Color me doubtful…

This idea has been presented before in terms of solar panels built into roadways.

Put the panels under traffic, bike or cars, and you’ve got more shading issues. And you’ve got more dirty surface issues. That top layer is almost certainly going to get scratched which will lower paned efficiency.

Makes more sense to me to put them over parking lots and over streets/highways in hot areas to provide shade.

Install panels over electric bike parking stands and let the grid provide extra power when needed or soak extra power when available.
- http://importantmedia.org Important Media Umbrella Acct
  
  yeah, seriously, above would be better — must cost more, but think it would pay off in the end.
  
  & i’m sure many a bicyclist would appreciate cover from the rain
Anumakonda Jagadeesh

Very Innovative approach to utilise solar energy on the roadways. This is possible in countries like Netherlands.Switzerland etc., where the roads are clean. In Developing countries dust across the roads is a big problem especially when vehicles pass by even though these countries experience high solar insolation being in the sunbelt countries.

Dr.A.Jagadeesh Nellore(AP),India
- Anonymous
  
  Imagine solar panel covers over the traffic-jammed streets of many Indian cities. What a relief for all those cycle-rickshaw, auto-rickshaw, and Tata Nano drivers locked in place below. Not to mention the odd camel and ox…. ;o)
  
  Imagine a system where there was a small electric ‘bike’ up at panel height for the panel dhobi to scoot along cleaning off the dust and pigeon poop.
  
  Wouldn’t be hard to build in a water supply and recovery system.