Highway or the Wattway

France (Tourouvre) creates the world's first solar power highway or the 'wattway'

On Thursday, 22nd of December,  

France first inaugurated the world's first Solar Highway , a road paved with solar panels to generate energy and use it to power the street lights of a small town Normandy of Tourouvre.It was first started by 4 parking lots in France. 

This concept is one of it's kind and it has started on a small scale experimental basis. The road extends for 1Km (0.6 miles) and is made of solar panels which are resin coated as analysed by the environmental minister. It is covered with 2,800 square metres(30,000 square feet) and believes to be connected by the local power grid.

It's setup cost  €5M (£4.2M) and it can be used by 2,000 vehicles a day. It has been made on an experimental or trial basis of a time span of 2 years to study and analyse it's pros and cons and it's capability of generating enough power for over 3,400 residents of the small town, Normandy.

This project was brought to reality by the French Civil Engineering firm, COLAS , which is a subsidiary of the giant BOUYGUES and funded by the state .Colas says that in future, France could become energy independent by paving only a quarter of its million kilometres of roads with solar panels.

The wattway is definitely a technical advantage, but it isn't quite cost-effective or in different words, not a wise use of the people's money. The firm believes that they can make it cost-effective by early 2020s, here's a case study that explains the same :

'In 2014, a solar-powered cycle path opened in Krommenie in the Netherlands and, despite teething problems, has generated 3,000kWh of energy – enough to power an average family home for a year. The cost of building the cycle path, however, could have paid for 520,000kWh'

Sceptics are waiting to see whether the panels are good enough and well built to withstand the various aspects of nature as time and weather and also how it deals with the different kind and size of vehicles.

The major disadvantage as of now is that highways are flat and that reduces the amount of sun rays that are absorbed by the panels. If the panels were inclinated , they would absorb a lot more solar energy and that could lead to an obvious more efficient energy source.

However,

This idea, is also under exploration in Germany, the Netherlands and the US, and believes that roadways are occupied by cars only around 20% of the time, providing vast expanses of surface to soak up the sun’s rays and could be a great source of energy in the coming future, if implemented efficiently in terms of both cost and quality.