A week or so ago, a "solar cycle path" was opened near Maartensdijk in the province of Utrecht, Netherlands.
The project costs €3.3m, and generates enough power for 3 homes.
When I saw the press release, I wrote a long twitter thread about how it's basically a shit idea, purely from a amount of power from the angle of the cells, and the cost.
You can read that thread here:
https://twitter.com/quixoticgeek/status/1416178859544829957Since then I found myself cycling across it at the weekend. I hadn't realised it was on my route until I approached it.
I took a video of riding along it, which you can find here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tIyv8S74fMI also took some photos.
It looks on first approach like the standard concrete panel construction, but slightly the wrong colour, then as you get closer you realise it's translucent glass. The surface has an interesting texture. It reminded me of woodchip wallpaper, and chipseal.
My biggest thought when I saw the announcement was it would be slippery. But I'm pleased to see it shouldn't be too bad. Heavy rain and long term wear may effect this.
Up close you can see the texture of the surface.
Ultimately this is a €3.3m vanity project, and a gimmick. Given you could generate the same power from the roof of 3 homes, and the cost per house would be no greater than €25k per house. I don't understand why anyone would want to do this. It doesn't make financial sense. It doesn't make energy efficiency sense. If we had completely exhausted every other suitable rooftop, then it may be worth considering other areas like this, but given 99.9% of the roofs I can see from my window are devoid of solar, we're a long way from that point. That €3.3m could get a lot of roof top solar. And if we really did want to get solar from this cycle path, we'd get a higher yield by building a cover over the top covered in solar panels, which would also protect us from the rain...
J
