Hi yes, its Solar Roadways time again. Ah, it's like playing Whack-a-mole It all started with Solar freakin' Roadways and I did a video debunking that one. Then it was the Solar Road in the Netherlands did a couple of videos debunking that one as well and it's back in the news again because France The minister the French Minister for Silly Walks has just announced that France intend to install a thousand kilometres of solar Road from a French company called out what way Ah, here we go again. let's whack this mole.

So what's happened here there? The French minister for Silly Walks has probably seen some PowerPoint presentation from this company, is flogging this stuff and goes ah yeah, that sounds are writing. Everyone loves green technology and I'll get some votes for that. Everyone will be happy. Yeah, we'll be world leaders.

Yeah, let's plan to do a thousand kilometres, but it doesn't matter what politicians say or plan to do engineering always. Trump's politics. Now this French system from a company called Coal Less who's part of a bigger group again like a thirty billion dollar company. they're one of.

Coal Less is one of France if not, Europe's our biggest road infrastructure companies there. That's what they do. They build roads so if they know Road technology. so if anyone can build a solar Road it's then they know what they're doing This spent five years on this countless amounts of money actually developing this thing and I will grant them this.

It is the best effort yet at solar roadways. Unlike the brochures with their ridiculous solar freakin' roadways that are hexagonal interlocking glass panel Wang Curie Things: What are they? Their solar freakin' roadways? it's technology that replaces all roadways, parking lots, sidewalks, driveways, tarmacs, bike paths, and outdoor recreation services with solar panels. And not just lifeless, boring solar panels. smart micro processing, interlocking hexagonal solar units.

So start out with that rubbish. Then it went to the Solar Rodoanel project, which I've done a video one and just it's just impractical. We've got a year's worth of results we're going to analyze here very quickly and now, yes, we do have the best effort yet because these things aren't made out of glass. Apparently they make.

They're very thin, like seven millimeters thick, and they're made out of like a some sort of, you know, resin, polymer material or something like that. and they actually stick down to the existing roadway so you don't have to rip them up and replace them like the ridiculous brochures system or even the solar. Road NL which come as huge, big concrete prefab blocks you just start slotting. So yeah, this is the best bit yet by an order of magnitude.

At least it overcomes a lot of the issues and cost associated with the previous projects. Not hugely efficient as they admit, but hey, it should actually work better as a road surface. But I won't go into the road surface thing because hey, we've had like hundreds of years of road surface development and technology and all that sort of stuff and is it any good? I don't know I don't care, we're just going to look at the solar aspect now. I Shouldn't need long to debunk this thing at all.

so I'll keep it as quick as possible. I Have done previous videos, more extensive calculations and and analysis and things like that. So click here if you want to see those or click down below now. will very quickly go back and just analyze the Netherlands project.

the Solar Road Nl1 the last video idea. We looked at the six month test results and some people said let's the wait until we get 12 months. Well, we do have 12 months test results and I won't go through all the details. but here's a summary of the results.

Basically, the Solar Road project is a 70 meter strip by 1.7 meters for a total area of a hundred and twenty square meters. And they've said in a press release after one year of having installed this thing, this is a real test on a real solar roadway or solar cycle way as this one is. It's not a road surface. Ninety-eight hundred kilowatt hours for that.

120 square metres. That gives us 82 kilowatt hours per square metre. Now that sounds pretty good, but hey, we can compare that with rooftop solar systems and not just my own rooftop solar system. I've done a video and click here to see some test results.

From that note, I'm going to get three rooftop solar systems within a couple of kilometers of this actual solar road installation and through the PV Output Org website which I'll link in down below for these three rooftop systems. Here from these our users, they're plotted, their data, will get their data over the same time period within a couple of kilometres. Sites Essentially, you know an Apples to Apples comparison and this is what we get for three different users. Here, we got a result of 2,500 kilowatt hours 2123 and I've actually gone through and checked the data sheets for their solar panels.

Got the square area so we can calculate a an equivalent output in square meters and therefore 150 245 an average of 146 kilowatt hours per square meters for these rooftop solar systems. Just you know, really low cost. You know, consumer rooftop solar systems, Not the more you know, the fancier, higher efficiency commercial installations which you'd really compare the solar Road system against just rooftop ones which aren't as good. Umm, compare it.

146 kilowatt hours per square meter for the rooftop, 82 kilowatt hours per square meter for the solar Road system. The solar Rhodes is has the fifty-six percent of the efficiency of a rooftop solar system that's basically half half the output. So right there it's done and dusted. Why the hell would you pay for solar roads that give you half the output at best? Let alone that's when they used to cycle waste, let alone we don't have any data when they're actually used as road surface.

When there's roads on there, there's traffic jams, is dirt and grime, and and you know problems with maintenance and things like that them getting destroyed and chewed up and whatnot. it's at best to half the output. Why would you do it? It's stupid, but it gets worse. Let's look at a cost analysis for this thing.

now. The CEO of Colas has actual admitted that the cost they figure is going to be around six euros per watt-peak That's what WP stands for basically per what output and they reckon you know, Maybe with time and huge volumes and things like that, Maybe I Don't hold your tongue at the right angle, cross your fingers and hope fit. You know some fairies can deliver three euros per what Now commercial ground-based systems. Here's some data which I'll link in down below.

It's a little bit old from up 2013-14 and it is already down to about point Seven euros per watt-peak and rooftop systems are generally considered to be about double a commercial Insulation That's what I said before. A commercial one is actually going to be higher efficiency, lower cost, and and all that sort of thing. Generally then, a rooftop system, but even a rooftop system around about one double cost, one and a half-year owes or there abouts what peak it's going to be at. Rooftop systems are still going to be twice as good as the absolute best case theoretical ballpark figure that the CEO of coal ass has come up with.

So when you combine the fact that at best it's going to be three times the cost of an equivalent at commercial ground installation for half the output, that is six times more dollars per what you're paying for. Solar roadway system that's at best. and as I said, doesn't include all the unknowns about using as a road surface and output and maintenance and cars on it and dirt and grime and all sorts of crap like that. It's complete engineering.

Foley It's just crazy at like. it makes no sense. Solar energy is already. It depends on the argument you take is that's already sort of like a marginal social infrastructure payback in terms of complete life cycle and things like that.

and you want to do it on road service The worst possible conditions? You've gotta be me. And even to get down to that area ferry, pie-in-the-sky three Euro per watt-peak the French government are aligned on a single sole contractor who has the monopoly on this thing. No competition whatsoever to drive the cost down. are you kidding me? And for the few solar roadways fanboys still out there, their argument still remains the same.

Ah, it's going to get lower cost, you know, with higher volume and the infrastructure. Learn to install them and maintain them and you know costs will go down and down and down. Yeah, well. they're still going down and down and down for regular rooftop and commercial installations as well.

It's like they're still going down. There's still this huge gap of you know, six times or more. it's probably even order of magnitude more cost dollars per what it's always going to be the case. Now the other argument is, well, who cares about the efficiency and all that? Surely some energy output is better than none, right? The roads just sit in there doing nothing.

Oh no, you don't get it. There's a much bigger issue at stake here as a society. One of the biggest problems we've got, if not the biggest or a problem for a future. Sustainability is energy, energy supply, energy consumption, and it's our responsibility as a society to produce renewable energy systems that are as efficient as possible.

They get the most bang per buck if you went and implemented solar roads on a mass scale or even a global scale as these people want to do. you know, on Save the World didn't you know right? If we just pave 10% of the roads in the world, compel the whole planet. If we did that, it would be nothing short of an ecological disaster because they would need so much maintenance. The infrastructure, the cost.

Just when you try and do a lifecycle analysis of a solar Robo is it's ridiculous. Wouldn't even know where to begin. We're only just coming to terms with a proper solar systems that we have now in that are done in the most efficient way possible: rooftop systems and ground-based solar systems. They're incredibly efficient, getting more efficient by the day.

They're incredibly reliable. About as reliable as you could possibly get. Why would you implement something that's an order of magnitude or more worse? Efficiency has no end of maintenance problems, and we haven't even started discussing how we're going to this system engineering stuff involved in this thing. not just as a road surface, but how they're all wired together.

You'll note you won't find any photos or any video or anything mentioned at all about how they actually get the get the power out of these things, wire them, or together it's all maintained. Do you have a micro inverter on each one? What are the arrangement of the arrays and all that sort of stuff, What happens, and maintenance, and everything else. Like just the system engineering involved in that, Because if you implement them as roadways, you've got to have the channels down the sides of the road so they've got to be shared with the gutters and the drainage in it. Then as an engineer, as a design engineer, something has got to implement this sort of, you know crazy idea that engineering challenges are just mind boggling.

And no, it's not good enough just to say it. Well, they're just challenges we can overcome those. no is just fundamentally facepalm worthy. stupid.

Don't put them on the roads. Sure, they might be useful in a niche application or something like that. You know, if you want to do some parking lot or something okay, some park, cycleway or something or whatever, you know? Okay, fine, but implement them on a mass scale is lunacy. And no doing research on solar roadways is not researching new solar technology.

All it's doing is taking existing solar panel technology and using it in the most abusive and most inefficient way possible. And by the way, I've been incredibly generous in these calculations here, saying you know at best six times dollars per what it's as I said, we're going to be an order of magnitude worse. This does not take into account the maintenance of a road service. When you take a solar panel and you drive cars on top of it.

Ah, are you insane? Why would you put anything on top of a solar panel? Just stupid. This is why after five years of development or you'll see from these companies is just a photo of a truck just you know, parked on top of the solar panels. They haven't actually implemented a kilometer of the thing as a real Road and actually have trucks driving on and slamming on their brakes and all sorts of wear and tear for a year before you even consider such a bloody engineering folly like this. Unbelievable.

So can we Just stop this? Solar roadways, please? It's just ridiculous. The numbers will never, ever work to put something on top of a solar panel. You you.