The US Federal Highways Administration is funding research to develop toughened Photo Voltaic cells that can replace asphalt on road surfaces.
According to figures from the American Geophysical Union, roads, highways and open-air parking lots in the lower 48 US states cover more than 100,000 square kilometres of surface area.
The plan is to create 3.7-metre square photo voltaic panels (the US interstate highway system standard lane width) that connect together, linking up through junction boxes. Its estimated that these panels would generate an average of 7.6 kilowatt-hours of energy a day. This could either be fed into the grid or stored locally to allow electric vehicles to recharge through roadside plug-in points.
The project faces some challenges, such as the expense - an estimated four times the current cost of laying asphalt, however that calculation does not include the electricity produced.
The toughening process has not yet been perfected, and also the issue of tyre grip on the smooth surface of the photo voltaic cells has not been resolved.
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