France opened a stretch of road in a tiny Normandy village today, paved with solar panels that hopefully will provide enough power to for the village's street lights.
It's a 2-year test of the technology; if it works, the village of Tourouvre may go down in history as the obscure village of Kitty Hawk did for the Wright Brothers. It was opened with a visit by Ecology Minister Segolene Royal, who said "This new use of solar energy takes advantage of large swathes of road infrastructure already in use... to produce electricity without taking up new real estate."
The 1 km stretch of road, nicknamed a "Wattway," cost about €5 million to build. The central government covered the cost for the specially-protected panels. It's expected that the cost would drop sharply in mass production.
The stretch of road involved is used by about 2000 cars a day.
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