Personally, I think it's an interesting idea, but way too expensive to ever be done in the near future. They also claim the roadways have heat filaments so snow and ice don't block the panels (and the roadway stays drive-able).
One thing I find a bit funny with all of their prototypes and graphical simulations is that they don't show any curved or terrained roads.
^^ How do they account for plowing? When you get a foot or two of snow, it will block the panels, and then the snow will have to be plowed away. I would like to find out how durable the panels are for snow plows.
This seems like it could prove very useful, however to make lengthy roads out of this seems to be very costly. Also, as many people are also wondering in the comments section of that video, wouldn't rain make it extremely slippery? I think it was said that heaters would melt snow and ice; but that would create a lot of water which could create very slippery conditions.
Quote from: Some_Person on February 03, 2013, 08:50:20 PMThis seems like it could prove very useful, however to make lengthy roads out of this seems to be very costly.
There's nowhere near enough high-enough quality silicon being produced for widespread roll out - lengthy roads are out of the question.
I believe that the first generation of decent solar panels are dying now, after 25 years of making back the energy it took to make them and 5 years of net usable energy produced. The mainstream tech hasn't advanced that much, due to desire to mass produce the less-good product rather than limited runs of the slightly better one. You get about 10 years out of 30 now making 'profit' on the energy resources, rather than just 5.
There's all sorts of research into making the yield a lot better, but it's not there yet and whether mass production of these solutions (like light diodes) can happen will be interesting.