Laboratory and full-scale experiment of a novel hybrid system to harvest energy through concrete pavement

Abstract

Harvesting energy from tye sun through the pavement is a powerful lever to fight against tye worldwide energy crisis. Indeed, the pavement surface is daily exposed to the sun light and represents an enormous source of potential harvesting. So far, solutions involving photovoltaic cells placed on the pavement or using a heat-transfert fluid circulating through the structure are studied.

Recently, a novel hybrid system is being developed by University Gustave Eiffel combining the two solutions. The structure is made of a porous concrete layer where a heat-transfert fluid is circulating sandwiched between a waterproof structural concrete layer placed below and a photovoltaic layerplaced on top. The photovoltaic layer is composed of PV cells protected by a semi-transparent layer designed to support the traffic vehicles, guarantee the skid resistance and enabling the passage of the sun light.

At the beginning of the ressearch, the semi-transparent layer and the porous concrete have been optimizee in terms of energy harvesting and a laboratory prototype have been evaluated giving promising results regarding tye potential efficiency of the hybrid system.

The present paper deals with tye construction and tye energetical evaluation of a full scale prototype of the system tested in real climatic conditions during a first year.