Solar Roadways Develops Prototype
Ingenious Project to Create Power from Roads Moves Forward
Scott and Julie Brusaw are a husband and wife team who have a vision to create self-powering roadways, which generate electricity through solar panels built into them, and then use this to run information displays, or heat the roadway to melt snow, for example. The modules have been tested to be robust enough to support the pounding of traffic on their surface.
After building their own panels in their workshop in Idaho, the project attracted the interest of the Federal Highway Administration, and funds were allocated so the Brusaws could build a protoype, in the shape of a parking lot using their solar roadway modular components.
The first photos of the initial installation have been released.”The basic installation is now done, but there is still work to do before the parking lot will be totally complete – LED patterns, covers for mounting holes and mastic to fill the gaps between panels are still to come”, said Scott Brusaw. “One of the biggest challenges of this phase was to explore and test various glass surfaces and textures and test them for strength, traction and durability and all test results have exceeded our expectations. In addition to the solar cells, the panels contain heaters to keep them snow/ice free and LED lights for road lines and verbiage”, added Scott.
The company needs to acquire funding to begin hiring a team, streamline the process for quick and cost effective production, and gear up for manufacturing. To this end, Solar Roadways will launch an Indiegogo campaign at 12:01am EST on Earth Day, April 22nd, 2014.
The Brusaws plan to locate their first manufacturing facility near their home in north Idaho, but envision facilities in most states and various countries as production ramps up. Solar Roadways has already received an outpouring of interest from potential customers, both in the USA and from many different areas of the world.
Solar Roadways is a company with a single purpose: to replace the USA’s deteriorating highway infrastructure and crumbling power grid with an intelligent highway system that pays for itself through the generation of electricity and doubles as an intelligent, self-healing, decentralised power grid.
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