I’d maybe give Solar Roadways as a possible example. I’m not sure, but I might have even donated to their crowdfunding campaign at the time.
Here are some edited quotes from the Wikipedia article, first about popularity:
In 2009, Solar Roadways received a $100,000… grant from the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT)… In 2011, Solar Roadways received a $750,000 SBIR grant from the DOT… In April 2014, the company started a crowdfunding drive at Indiegogo to raise money so they could get the product into production. The campaign raised 2.2 million dollars and became Indiegogo’s most popular campaign ever in terms of the number of backers it attracted… In December 2015, the USDOT announced that it had awarded Solar Roadways a Phase IIB SBIR contract to further their research. In 2016 they were given an additional $750,000.00.
And about results:
The first public installation was… on September 30, 2016. [It] generated… around ¼ kWh per day during their most productive month, August 2018. For comparison, a typical home solar panel produces 1.45 kWh per typical day.
In December 2018, Solar Roadways shut down [that installation] after some problems started to emerge. LEDs in certain colors started to fade unexpectedly, and snow caused problems for the heating elements because of the metal strips which cover the gap between the panels.
And criticism:
Journalist David Biello, writing in Scientific American, noted the difficulties of the project in dealing with material limitations, particularly in its choice of making the surface of the panels from… “a type of glass that does not yet exist.”
Sebastian Anthony noted… that the cost to replace all roads in the United States with Solar Roadways panels would come to approximately $56 trillion… The USDOT announcement of Phase IIB funding in December 2015 mentioned that because the solar cells were still manufactured by hand, they were “very costly to produce”.
Phil Mason… made a similar argument about cost, adding his doubts about traction on a glass surface… US Department of Transportation engineer Eric Weaver commented on Solar Roadways’ safety tests, saying: “We can’t say that it would be safe for roadway vehicular traffic. Further field-traffic evaluation is needed to determine safety and durability performance.”
After years of development and millions of dollars (including government funding), all of the solar roadways installed today do not produce cost-effective energy production. The roads are expensive and produce far less electricity than what could be produced if the money was used on a solar farm- or by simply placing them by the side of the road.
I’d maybe give Solar Roadways as a possible example. I’m not sure, but I might have even donated to their crowdfunding campaign at the time.
Here are some edited quotes from the Wikipedia article, first about popularity:
And about results:
And criticism:
Also from other sources: