The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research and the Dutch province of North Holland opened the world’s first stretch of roadway made of solar cells on November 12th. The 230-foot stretch is a bike path named SolaRoad. The short run is meant as a first step road test to see how well the solar panels with two layers of safety glass produce and hold-up to the daily grind of bicycles.
The sun’s energy is abundant and doesn’t need to be mined or drilled, but collecting it in panels requires large spaces. Roof-top panels have been one solution, but roadways offer larger tracts. In the US, there is a Solar Roadways Indiegogo campaign that has raised more than $2 million, so far. The claims are for “Solar panels that you can drive, park, and walk on. They melt snow and... cut greenhouse gases by 75-percent.”
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/solar-roadways
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/11/11/3591195/netherlands-solar-road/