Solar pavement: A new emerging technology

The present work is conducted to evaluate the feasibility of using solar pavements as a sustainable energy producer to supply electrical energy. For this purpose, we prepared two prototypes entitled as “solar panel” (solar cell embedded in rubber and Plexiglas) and “solar pavement” (solar cell embedded between two porous rubber layers) which both are capable of harvesting and converting the solar energy into photovoltaic cells. In this work, components of the new solar pavements were introduced. These two designed pavements were evaluated in terms of supply energy, surface safety movement, and structural performance. The British Pendulum Tester (BPT) and Universal Test Machine (UTM) were used for measuring surface frictional properties and determining the dynamic property of solar pavement, respectively. Moreover, the drainage test was investigated for both prototypes. To survey the feasibility of solar pavement to achieve the electrical energy through solar cells, I-V (current-voltage) measurements were carried out to record the current and voltages of the solar cells embedded in the pavement under different conditions and determine their power conversion efficiency (PCE). The BPT values for solar panel and solar pavement under the wet condition were measured as 42 and 47.8, respectively. Also, the drainage test showed that the average volumetric flow rates of solar panel and solar pavement are 0.018 and 0.042 L/s, respectively. Moreover, the value of drainage test was 0.0224 L/s in asphalt pavement. The solar pavement in comparison to solar panel showed a higher PCE value of 5.336%. Besides, based on the UTM results, the flow number (FN) is 1002 with 49 mm deformation for solar panel and 1260 with 65 mm deformation for solar pavement. The UTM results also showed that solar pavement improves rutting performance in comparison with a solar panel. Thus, adding a new layer of the solar cell and rubber solar pavement could enhance strength parameters and electricity generation for transportation application.