Hi, It's time to bust another solar grift. another solar boondoggle. They never end. We've got Solar Freaking Pavements this time.

Thank you to all the viewers who sent this one in. And hi to all my Uh Dutch viewers in the nether regions. Um, that's where this one is and we're gonna bust this wide open. We've got the numbers.

Let's go for it. So a foot path at Europa Park produces a lot of energy. Dutch City Installs Solar Footpath first Dutch Solar Footpath at the Europa Park If I'm pronouncing that correctly, let's go into it. We've actually seen this before.

it's from a company called Pledio and I did a quick second Channel Video on this just basically laughing my ass off at this Platio Solver solar pavement. uh BS and I'll link it in. you can go watch it. And there's the solar uh Platio tile here.

They've done quite a few installations actually. they've um, got that. That's the team I Presume: good to recharge. Look at this self-free charging look.

infinite power. but we're actually gonna bust it with some numbers today because we've got them. Let's go. Hungary's Platio has inaugurated a solar footpath in the Dutch city of Uh Groningen Uh, The installation consists of 2 544 what a crystalline Plateau solar pavers with a 21.8 efficiency.

It will generate 55 000 kilowatt hours. That's 55 megawatt hours of electricity per year and can purportedly withstand a pressure of two tons without micro cracks. Wow! Oh look at this. They're all happily walking on it and this is part of uh, the making City European Union project.

and I couldn't actually find any funding value for this. how much they paid for it will estimate some numbers, but if you got uh, an exact figure what they actually um, paid for this thing, then leave it in the comments down below and there's the technical specs for those playing along at home. And they're made of recycled plastic. We're going to double use of the space.

you can walk on them. It's an example of how to use the space in a city in a smart and sustainable way. Really? It Produced enough energy to power 47 Dutch Houses for one day. And here they are at the unveiling How much energy went into producing this uh, a wanky, uh, big like Styrofoam plug thing.

Unbelievable. We've got a video. Let's watch it real quick. Look at this big photo up, look at that.

oh yeah, you have to show the logo. gotta get the logo. It's important. are they funding it? I don't know who this dude is sorry I don't speak Dutch so I don't know I'll get the Arty shot of course.

look at this. It's quite a big installation. actually a cabinet which has all the um in Phase inverters in there. They'll show us that, look at that, we'll test them and we're going to go through these numbers.

Wide open? yeah sorry. I'll link it in. You can watch it if you want, but there you go Looks quite a large installation. 2500 of these panels.

There we go. Oh yeah, there's all the interface. Nice installation of the micro inverters. Again, yeah, it's producing power.

It works. This thing is an absolute winner. it generates. So I'll show you exactly where this is.

It is in front of these buildings here. Okay, I don't know how far along it goes. You can watch that uh video again and we can actually go in here and we can have a look at that. So this is where they've actually installed it.

You might have noticed, uh, those buildings there. So this is in Gronigan here, which is, uh, up the northern part of the nether regions up here. and the thing you'll notice is look at this building next to it filled with solar panels. This is the way.

and then all these buildings over here look. Solar Panels. Solar Panels. Solar Panels.

Solar Panels. Solar Panels. Solar Panels. Solar panels.

Are they solar panels. They look like solar panels. Solar panels everywhere Does every look. Every house over here has solar panels.

Solar panels and they want to install this boondoggle. But no, let's lay them flat on the ground so we can walk on them and then you've got like Shadows from these uh, planter boxes on the side here, and also potentially from the buildings as well. Unbelievable. Anyway, right next to it, there is more than the 400 square meters that they've got.

Put them on these rooftops here. You want to know why they don't do it? Here's why: the EU Making City Project aims to develop positive energy districts. ped. You've got to have a TLA demonstrating the potential of innovative solutions to tackle climate neutral goals.

Innovative solutions. and apparently they are giving I found some info. They argue giving up to five million dollars to innovative solutions for um, to meet these climate neutral goals for each project can apply for up to five million maximum. Grant So if you know how one much this one, uh, costs then leave it in the comments down below.

And that's how these solar grips continue to work. Because there are governments which want a virtue signal and just throw money tax dollars your dollars into a innovative solutions even if they make absolutely no sense whatsoever. and wait until you see the numbers. They're horrifically bad.

But this is what we expect from solar roadways. I've done countless videos of all the different solar installations and solar freaking Railways and solar freaking Bridges Solar freaking cycleways and Pathways and all sorts of ridiculous things. And then there's one in Spain here. Oh I forgot I'd actually done this one.

This is actually a Platio. Yes, I'd completely forgot that I've already done a main Channel video on Platio in Spain They did this anyway. I'll link in that one seriously. I've done so many solar Railways videos that I I've just just can't remember them.

They're a dime a dozen a link in their website down below. Check it out. So they've got uh, various blog articles on all the installations that they've actually, uh done. For this, it's It's quite a lot.

and this latest one is absolutely enormous. 2500 of these panels 400 square meters anyway. I Was able to find an old article from 2020 which mentioned uh gives a quote um from someone from the company saying they're between 50 Euros and 80 Euros per unit. So yeah, we've got.

Let's just run with a baseline of 50 Euros not including installation I Don't believe. Um, this is just the list price for the panel. How much does the Cheapo brand solar panel cost? It's probably not too far from that and that'll be like 400 watts. You're here to see the numbers.

Let's bust this one wide open real quick. Doesn't take much, you just have to do the research. So on Dave CAD Here let's run through the numbers for the Platio Installation Nation and will get a figure for a kilowatt hour per square meter figure and a cost per square meter figure not including installation because we don't know what the install cost is and I'll link in the Articles down below. You can verify these figures for yourself, but we've got 400 square meter installation.

We've got 2 544 panels. They cost about 50 euros each. That's a total cost minimum of a hundred and twenty seven thousand dollars as I said, not including installation which is be quite significant not including those end phase micro inverters I don't They're not going to have 2 000 and phase micro inverters. They've got multiple ones.

They string them uh, in series and then use those on a micro inverter. probably a whole row strip of them or something like that. Don't know if you've got details. Leave it in the comments down below and we have courtesy of their website which was this.

it was on the installation day. We can see here the end Phase Envoy app. Here we can see that this Um has produced 388 kilowatt hours over the last seven days and we know the date it was installed. So there it is there.

388 kilowatt hours over seven days. Now can we compare it? Can we get a like a realistic comparison with a nearby residential solar system? You bet your weekend. We've done this in previous videos, let's go over to Pvoutput.org and I'm going to compare it with a nearby like very close by residential installation. So the solar insulation, the weather, everything should be very similar.

and we've got the data for those exact seven days before the installation. So check it out here: Pvoutput.org I Found a nearby one I Found one with a photo. This isn't the closest one, but this is one that actually has a installation. A photo of their installation.

They've got five panels here and five panels on the other side of there. So obviously this is isn't even an optimized installation for the angles. But we've got the data on the panels. Here, It is here.

It's got 10 385 watt panels, We've got the exact uh, manufacturer's number so we can pull up the data sheet for that panel so we can work out the outputs per square meter. And also we know, uh, the cost of these things too I just pulled it off. Uh, Google So we're talking uh, 10 of these panels here, which Uh is in equates to a total square meter of 17.8 square meters. and I found a price online? It could be less.

Leave it in the comments if you've got a more up-to-date pricing. but I found 128 Euros each. so 1280 it doesn't include installation. Of course it's just the panel cost, but you know we're comparing Apples to Apples over here.

Okay, and we can actually get the data from this and we know the date it was installed. March 24th here. So we can go to Pvoutput.org for this particular installation. I Can show you where it actually is.

Here, it is here. It's there. I don't have the exact scale there, but it's only a couple of kilometers away, right? so it's that one there. It's the only one that had a photo with the late data startup.

Well, sorry I just realized I Go with the calculations I'll have to redo them I Did eight days instead of seven days. Anyway, it turns out it's 42.9 kilowatt hours for the seven days. Uh, before the installation date? There we go. Nine.

Eight kilowatt hours? Uh, 4.9 right? There was a, you know, a speed of bad weather here, right? Look at just like a week or two later. So this was a, really, you know, quite a terrible time. But because we're comparing two systems Apple to Apple nearby, they should get the same solar insulation, the same weather. You know, pretty much everything else.

it should average out. So I'll just delete those or redo that. Sorry. 42.9 kilowatt hours over the same seven days.

So Apples to Apples Comparison here. it's as good as it gets. So it produced 42.9 kilowatt hours over the seven days compared to 388. Because it's a much bigger array 400 square meters, this is only 17.8 so we can actually now calculate the kilowatt hour per square meter figure.

So we take the kilowatt hours and we divided by the square meters. Here we get. You know, we can round that to one kilowatt hour per square meter for the Palladio system. What do we get for the just a generic, non-optimized remember, different angled roofs? Uh, rooftop solar system just a kilometer or two away? Uh, 42.9 kilowatt hours divided by 17.8 square meters? 2.41 kilowatt hours per square meter.

It's practically two and a half times the output compared to the Plateau, But we ain't done yet. Now we'll get the cost per square meter. This is not including installation costs. Remember: 127 000 Euros divided by 400 square meters 318 Euros per square meter just for the panel cost.

Anyway, the rooftop system 1280 divided by 17.8 square meters is 71.9 72 Euros per square meter. Um, that's less than that. and this is more than that compounded failure. So if we compare these numbers, the rooftop solar system, non-optimized has 2.5 times the output energy for one quarter the cost.

For the dummies who don't get it yet. I'll get the confuser out here. 2.5 divided by a quarter is 10. 10 times it is.

Rooftop solar is 10 times more economical than this stupid Platio boondoggle. I Can just hear the comments down below. Dave You're just anti-innovation If you supported this patio this really Innovative product, it'll just get cheaper and cheaper and it'll be on par to Rooftop Solar. No, it's never going to get anywhere near the cost of residential or commercial solar panels.

They are highly optimized. Then the installation costs are always going to be lower. Just look at what's involved in the installation thing here. from this: Spanish one for the Palladio tiles.

Look at all the wiring, look at all the extra complexity in this. Think about all the embodied energy that goes into this. Yeah, they Market this is oh these are you know, made from recycled plastic? Super wanky. Will you know? Save the whales and everything.

and no, no, this is absolutely ridiculous. they're gonna be. It's like an order of magnitude less reliable just from the installation and wiring and connections and everything else. And then you've got any potential problems with like physicality of actually walking on these things and then shading the damn things and doing it.

Just stop It reduces CO2 production might ask the thick ass glass that goes into the I think it's 10 millimeter thick glass that goes on top of these things. and all the extra cabling and connectors and wiring and everything like. and then solar panels are super thin, super like a manufacture, super low cost. You know it's about as lower embodied energy as you can get and they just want to do this.

Boondoggle: it's going to be an order of magnitude more embodied energy. I'm sick of this crap and then they only give you a five-year warranty on this thing. I Read it somewhere a residential and Commercial panels. You'll get 20 years 25 years warranty if the company's still going.

of course. but anyway, like it's just oh so. just stop it. Stop this boondoggle.

and PV This is one of the worst PV Magazine is one of the worst Defenders People keep sending me PV magazine articles. It just has the promoting the latest. BS There's no push backing on on it whatsoever. There's no critical analysis It is Trivial to do back in the envelope calculations like this: Where's the bloody journalism? You won't find it anywhere.

It is 10 times worse. Like oh, that's a piece of actual panel that goes on top of the solar panel. This is. Oh, granted, this is not platio, but this is from uh, solar roads in the Netherlands And like it's just no.

When you go, when you need to protect this thing with a massively thick coating, you're going to get transmission losses and you're going to end up with this kind of loss, right? You're going to get like a quarter of the output power. This is just the same for all these solar. Road Solar Pavement. Solar.

Freaking. Railway Solar. Freaking. Bridges Solar Freaking disco, dance floors and what have you? So can we please just stop promoting this rubbish? It is just an absolute boondoggle grift waste of money.

But these companies still keep going because these governments want a virtue signal with your money. To that, they're doing something. Innovative Until you've got solar on every one of these rooftops. Everywhere.

everywhere. Every car, parking space, Everything. Until you've done that. Then we'll talk about putting solar panels on the bloody ground and walking and driving on them and riding your bikes on.

I've been busting this crap for more than a decade now. It's all the same. the numbers never change and yes, I know you want an update on the Bruce I was our good friends at Solar Freaking Roadways the OG someone roadway Madness You remember when I did a video on the one million dollar funding that they got in addition to what was it? I think oh I Can't find my original graphic, but it's like four million dollars they already raised through various other things including the kickstarter thing or whatever it was, plus all sorts of government funding. Um, then they raised another million dollars.

Well, that one million dollars I'll give you an update. They actually raised two and a half million bucks from that campaign onstart engine. They had 2294 suckers who bought shares in Solar Freaking Roadways. Apparently they're valued at 30 million dollars, but they're still doing their grift.

They haven't updated much and yes, the webcam still works. You won't believe it. The original OG installation is still going I think one panel has failed. So good on them.

you know, pretty reliable. Still haven't driven a car on them after they've been in business. They've been grifting this Solar Roadways gig. I Think it's for at least 16 years now and companies like Palladio will just steal your money through government virtue signaling for these, you know Net Zero Bloody Goals with Innovative Funding Nothing Innovative about putting solar panels in the worst possible environment.

Just put them on every freaking rooftop. it's not that hard. And the Netherlands what are you doing? Here's another article. Construction begins on Solar cycling path in the Netherlands the Dutch province in north at Brabant will deploy a 500 meter long solar bike lane and test his performance over a five-year period.

It's not going to last five years. we saw what happened to the last one. They even tell you in the article solar roads in the Netherlands are not an unfamiliar concept. You think a bike path near Amsterdam was equipped with solar panels into 2016.

another one was built in 2020, both of which I've covered in the province of the feasibility and economic viability of solar roads. However, Still Remains Controversial. Anyway, I'll end on some good news. Look at this unique in Germany opens the First Solar roof cycle path.

This is the way just like I've showed you the one in South Korea that's like 20 kilometers long or something. Like, until you've done all of that, then we'll talk about putting them on the bloody ground. French Seem to have the idea right? New French Law will blanket parking lots with solar panels anyway. that is Thoroughly busted.

I Could do more installations and Compare the numbers, but you're just going to get the same result. So please just stop it. Stop it. But I I Don't think now.

as long as there's money to be grifted off the government your money, then there'll be companies like this that will take advantage of it and they'll just milk that cash cow for all it's worth. No wait. Hang on! I Was just editing the video and you saw the overlay before. I Found a 400 watt panel for like 135 Euros.

and if you run the numbers based on the size of their installation with their 2500 uh panels 54 kilowatts, uh total then you're looking at only one seventh the cost for rooftop solar. It's a no-brainer Well, at least it keeps me in business, keeps you entertained, and hopefully you'll learn something from that. And if you liked it and found it informative, please give it a big thumbs up. Give it a share to everyone you know who promotes or you know you.

Oh my mother promoted this on Facebook and share this video with them. Please. It's just we can't stop this. but at least we can have a good laugh and we can just keep busting them anyway.

Hope you enjoyed it. Catch you next time Foreign.