After two and a half years of lawsuits, they claim that the first route with solar panels was a failure

After 31 months of testing, the conclusions are decisive: the first solar panel road did not give the expected results. As the French newspaper Le Monde has published, it was "a failure". It was inaugurated at the end of 2016 by the former French Minister of the Environment, Ségolène Royal.

It's about a kilometer from solar panels on the asphalt in the town of Tourouvre, in the French region of Normandy. were 2800 square meters panels capable of supporting the weight of vehicles. The plan was to generate enough energy for power the public lighting network in the streets of a town of 3400 inhabitants. But it did not work.

According to the article published in this media, the problems were several. For starters, unable to focus on the sun, they generate Half of the expected energy. For the worse, Normandy, the region where they were installed, It is not characterized by sunny days.

In addition, the protective resin with which the panels have been coated (to support the weight of pbading vehicles) is taking off, and a portion of 100 meters had to be removed.

Finally, the leaves of the trees that remain on the road block the sunlight and, to top it off, the car and truck noise the crossing of the panels is so high that in this section, the maximum speed was limited to 70 km / h.

The project called for Wattway and involved an investment of five million euros. The idea was that the route could generate energy even if it had not been traveled. The company responsible for forwarding it was the Frenchwoman called The tails, belonging to the Bouygues telecommunications group.