Solar Roadways: Crowdfunding solar development

Solar Roadways is a company with an exciting concept, which is to virtually pave roads with solar panels. They know how to do it and have small-scale demonstrations showing that it works. But to bring this concept to a greater scale, the company launched an Indigogo crowdsourcing campaign to gear up production.

The first prototype was finished in 2010. It was a 12 by 12-foot road panel. It used polycarabonate instead of glass, didn’t contain solar cells and was tested indoors to show the functionality of the proposed electronics. Just a few months ago the second prototype was tested. This time they covered a parking lot with solar cells, LEDs, heating elements and a textured glass surface. So far Phase II tests have included load, traction and impact resistance testing of the glass.