Utilizing Solar Pavements as an Alternative Sustainable Renewable Energy Source Paving Material

Recently, the environmental aspect has become a crucial parameter in the life cycle of earth and human beings. One of the most detrimental factors on the environment is combustion of fossil fuels which greatly contributes to greenhouse gases emissions. Accordingly, scientists across the glop need to collaboratively develop new technologies of renewable energies alternatives. In the last decade, utilization of pavement to harvest solar energy attracted many researchers. In this research, an automatic data acquisition system and a small-scale pilot project are designed to measure the effectiveness of the pavement solar energy system based on the operation data of 24 hours per day in various climate conditions. When focusing on Egypt's regards to the electrical demand issue, it can be observed that there is an electricity supply shortage from renewable energy source. Therefore, this paper aims to study the effect of implementing the aforementioned idea of solar roadways on Egyptian roads. Solar road panels (SRP) is a new technology being designed to serve as the top layer of pavement infrastructure. The implementation of SRP for these applications brought back a multitude of benefits, in terms of electrical cost reduction, positive environmental impacts, and a higher overall energy efficiency. Four distinct tests were carried out in previous literatures to determine the viability of SRP as a replacement roadway material that also generates electricity.