The first solar path: Ineffective, many fragments, reduced efficiency

The solar line (including underground light energy collectors) is said to be one of the great innovations in the renewable energy industry in particular and the energy sector in general.

Covering up to 2,800m ² , Normandy Road is the first solar street in the world , inaugurated in 2016 at Tourouvre-au-Perche, France. But now, after more than 2 years of operation, this road has been evaluated by experts as ineffective.

After 2 years of operation, the Normandy road is considered ineffective.

This road is now degraded heavily, all repairs will be too expensive. Last May, France had to eliminate a length of 100 meters because of a complete failure, could not be used. According to Le Monde , many light-receiving panels were no longer attached to the road, some sections were even broken due to the pressure of the vehicles above.

Besides the aforementioned failures, the Normandy line is also not functioning properly. When inaugurated, the road is expected to generate up to 790 kWh per day, providing enough for 3,000-5,000 people. But when it was put into operation, performance fell by half, continuing to decline over time . This road also creates much more noise than ordinary plastic roads, so that the vehicles passing through here must not exceed the speed of 70km / h!

Normandy Road does not work properly.

According to the Daily Caller , this path works inefficiently because it is incapable of tilting in the direction of the sun (like sunflowers), along with being blocked by passing vehicles. Although costing up to 6.1 million USD, roads with up to 75% of the energy panels are broken before installation, which cannot generate electrical energy.

An electrical engineer even said it was "a heavy failure" in an interview with KXLY news . Even when operating normally, each energy plate can only provide one tap and a few bathroom lamps.

Normandy Road when inaugurated.

Even so, not all solar energy lines fail. In the Netherlands, a similar 70m long road was inaugurated in 2018. The original plan for this road was from 50 to 70 70 kWh / m ² a year, but after 1 year of use, this figure up to 74 kWh, the next year increased to 93 kWh.

This year, the Netherlands is expected to open two more roads, one 50m long next to Amsterdam-Schiphol airport and one 100m long from Rotterdam, a few trees, on a bus-only road.

• France has solar lines
• The road itself glows at night thanks to solar energy