Crowdfunding site, Indiegogo just saw the Solar Roadways project become its most well-funded crowd fund campaign yet.
This means one day the road you drive may also generate solar electric power for your home. That’s the promise of Solar Roadways’ crowdfunding campaign. The crowdfunding round closed with $2.2 million funding last week — double what entrepreneur, Scott Brusaw, had asked for.
How it works
Solar Roadways replaces roads with solar panels which you can drive on. If they work it means highways will become power grids capable of powering the entire country. While there’s skepticism about the idea, Brusaw has raised a couple of million dollars from the crowd to help make it work.
He claims the glass in the modular pavers that shield the solar panels can handle the weight of any big truck. Eventually he wants the system to be generating power on highways, footpaths, driveways, playgrounds…
He has set Indiegogo records: the most popular campaign ever seen on the crowdfunding site, Solar Roadways attracted 48,000 backers from all across the US and 164 other countries.
Next step
The next step? Brusaw will test a prototype in Sandpoint, Idaho. He believes his system could eventually generate three times the electricity currently used in the US, while improving road safety and greenhouse gas emissions.
“At the end of the year we’ll have a finished product,” he told Yahoo News. “Once we’re convinced the final product works in a parking lot, we’ll try residential roads. Then, eventually, the fast lane of a highway.”
Solar Roadways was selected as a Finalist in the World Technology Award For Energy, presented last year in association with TIME, Fortune, CNN, and Science.
Crowdfunding future
Investors and entrepreneurs take note: the rush to invest in this idea suggests there’s huge demand for crowdfunding projects combining social good with environmental concerns.
Join the other 16 million people who watched the project video below.
