Solar Powered Traffic Signs Receive Slow Start; Currently Embraced By Highway Departments
Solar panel installation, especially in China, the US and Europe, has grown dramatically in recent years. However the total output from all solar installations worldwide remains around seven GW, which is only a fraction of the world’s energy requirements. What is limiting the scale of solar power development is manufacturing costs and higher material costs, low solar module efficiency and a worldwide shortage of silicon that is all needed to develop solar energy that is able to compete with liquid fossil fuels and coal.
The cost per kilowatt of solar power needs to be improved, primarily by concentrating greater amounts of solar energy onto the cells, or by improving the efficiency of the solar collecting cells that make up the solar modules.
Those communities that are embracing solar powered traffic signs are enjoying cleaner and quieter power plus a savings on their utilities.
During the energy crisis of the 1970s, scientists began looking for alternatives to fossil fuels in order to supply the United States growing energy needs. What they did was look to the sun as many of our ancestors have done for many of years – the most natural provider of energy for our planet. Energy from the sun has an intensity of 1.2 kilowatts per square m or approximately 1.3 hp per square yard; the difficult part has always been harnessing this energy.
Through trial and error, hot water heaters, pocket calculators and battery chargers for backpackers, solar power proved it could be harnessed to make things run in a way that could be useful for everyday applications.
Today solar power is beginning to make its way to the roadways and highways as arrowboards and changeable message boards. These solar powered safety signs were slow at first to catch on with highway departments because they were used for large diesel powered signs but with the environmentally conscious movement afloat, they were quick to jump on the solar powered system bandwagon.
Solar powered traffic signs, safety signs and directional signs help save highway departments and communities thousands of dollars in electrical bills in addition to saving the environment from the diesel toxins released into the air from the older diesel run signs.