The Netherlands on Wednesday unveiled the world’s first solar bike path, a revolutionary project to harvest the sun’s energy that could eventually also be used on roads.<\/p>\n
The so-called “SolaRoad” bike path is made of concrete modules each measuring 2.5 by 3.5 metres (eight by 11 feet), embedded with solar panels covered in tempered glass.<\/p>\n
To help prevent accidents, the glass has been given a special non-slip surface.<\/p>\n
The solar cells currently put the electricity they generate onto the national grid, but future plans include using the energy to power street lights.<\/p>\n
Electric bikes and cars will one day be able to refuel using contactless charging directly from the road or bike path, said Sten de Wit, a physicist who helped develop the project.<\/p>\n
“The idea is that in the Netherlands we have approximately 140,000 kilometres (87,000 miles) of road which is much bigger than all the rooftops put together,” De Wit told AFP.<\/p>\n
“We have 25,000 kilometres of bike paths in the Netherlands.”<\/p>\n
“If we can integrate it in our roads then we’ll have huge extra potential for generating solar electricity,” he said.<\/p>\n
The path has been working for 16 days, during which it generated 140 kilowatt hours of electricity, equivalent to around 140 washing machine cycles, said SolaRoad spokeswoman Jannemieke van Dieren.<\/p>\n
The project has so far cost three million euros ($3.7 million), mainly for research, but SolaRoad declined to say what the cost per kilometre might be.<\/p>\n
Dutch Economics Minister Henk Kamp cycled the first 70-metre (230-feet) pilot stretch of bike path on a busy provincial bicycle route north of Amsterdam on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
“The Netherlands is quite ambitious when it comes to sustainable energy. This innovation is an important part of it,” Kamp told AFP afterwards.<\/p>\n
The small country of 18 million — most of them cyclists — hopes to triple sustainable energy usage by 2020 and be “energy neutral” by 2050, Kamp said.<\/p>\n
The SolaRoad will be tested over the next two years on a path that carries around 2,000 cyclists a day, De Wit said.<\/p>\n
The aim is to have the solar road commercially available on Dutch roads within the next five years as the number of electrically-powered cars and bicycles grows.<\/p>\n
“We are very confident that in five years we will have a product we can apply on a large scale,” De Wit said.<\/p>\n
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