This is happening! The 1st solar-powered road is open to the public.
Since November 12th 2014, 70m of bike lane in North Amsterdam are equipped with solar panels covered with tempered glass. For the 1st time, roads are used to “harvest” solar energy. The electricity produced is fed into the national grid but in the future could be used to power street and traffic lights or electric vehicles.
This innovative project named SolaRoad and developed by Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) is part a larger program for the promotion of renewable energies. Ultimately the Dutch government is targeting to triple the share of regenerative energy for its electricity consumption by 2020 and would like to achieve a carbon neutral balance by 2050. The pilot project will be running for 2 years and hopefully will be soon followed by many more kilometres.