Watch the video. The stored power would be used to keep the road surface above freezing in adverse weather. No plows. No salt.
I don't know what the limits are as far as dealing with feet of snow from a blizzard, or air temperatures in the negative double-digits, but it's worth looking into.
Just storing the power in batteries would be costly - it would do much better to suck power from the grid (getting power from hundreds of miles away where it's sunny and clear) to melt off snow and ice, and then of course send power onto the grid when it gets enough sunlight.
And as for yet another risk, I envision getting lots of these going to where they add a substantial amount to the use of electricity, and then
a big volcano blows, blocking out sunlight for a year or so, necessitating cranking up some old coal-burning electric plants. At least the sulfur in the air will reduce global warming for a while.
All I can think about is poor BC with its thousands of forest service roads that are already subject to the elements, barely wide enough to fit a logging truck, much less two cars on the road at a time... These would undoubtedly be low on the list to get done, but for how long?
So at this point I'm thinking, why would such roads EVER be done? If they're surrounded by trees, they'll be in the shade for most of daylight, and won't produce much power at all compared to a more exposed road.
When most of Canada has moved on to the electric cars and traveling on the solar roadways, what happens when they're going along a backwater road and they can't go any further?
Oh, I see, you're thinking that these roads will somehow directly power electric cars that drive over them. While this might be in some way possible, it will no doubt be many years down the road (ahem) before that happens.
As I understand it, these roads will tie into the standard electric grid and help power everything that connects to it, not just electric cars. Such cars will have batteries (just as they do now), and connect up to be charged when they are parked (just as they do now).
And further onto that, what of driveways? Again, obviously low on the priority but some people have pretty substantial driveways, either steep or long... what happens then? Is the car just going to stop once you're off the platforms? And then you have to schlep it the way onward?
Even if the cars are powered directly by the road, surely they'll have enough battery power to run a couple of MILES without being on the road. Current electric cars run a couple HUNDRED miles without external power, though batteries make up a substantial portion of their weight.
Are the cars going to be completely dependant on the solar energy? Is this high/low stakes priority list going to enforce that everybody gets a Hybrid (hey, that's my word) for the first 5, 10, 15, 25?? years until the world is covered in this stuff?
And I still can't wrap my mind around the overuse of it too... Sure your average car wouldn't do much to it, nor would a bunch of average cars or trucks... but what about the semis? the logging trucks, the trailers... the continual use of these oversized vehicles driving over them... I can't imagine that they'd be that heavy duty to withstand that kind of use over an extended period of time.
How on earth would you keep them clean enough to be effective?
Yet another of a myriad of questions, and too many remain unanswered.
While I find this an interesting idea, the practical questions put this way down on the list that (if I had the money and chose to do so) I would "invest" in crowdfunded projects.
