China’s solar motorway

The world’s first “solar motorway” has opened to traffic in the Chinese city of Jinan, reports The Times. For the pilot project, on a kilometre-long stretch of highway, solar panels capable of powering
street lights, road signs and hundreds of nearby houses have been installed under “transparent concrete”. The concrete is said to be tougher than asphalt, and – in theory – capable of withstanding 45,000 cars a day. The engineers responsible for the pilot project have also installed an electromagnetic induction coil in the road, which could in future charge electric vehicles driving along it. Solar roads and pavements are an emerging trend – the Netherlands and France have run small pilot schemes, and Tokyo plans to build solar roads next year – but the technology is still too expensive to be rolled out on a large scale, and it’s not yet clear how resilient the roads are: just days after the Jinan highway opened, a large crack appeared in its surface.