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Happy Earth Day Solar Roadies! Idaho-based Solar Roadways Updates
As most of you know, we invented Solar Roadways with the goal of helping the environment. We’d been hearing about the Climate Crisis, pollution, dangers to our planet and all of its inhabitants. We loved the idea of solar energy but realized that it was not being utilized to a degree that would be sufficient to be a significant help in solving these problems.
We quickly realized that if Solar Road Panels were made available for installation on virtually all walking and driving surfaces on Earth, the potential to help would be vast.
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As we took a deep dive into the inventing process, we realized by adding heating elements and LED lights to Solar Road Panels, our invention could make the world safer as well as greener. All without taking away swaths of wild land for solar arrays.
Our snow season here in North Idaho is just about coming to a close – although we just had snow on Easter for the first time ever! The winter testing went well and we continue to believe that the heating elements will be able to prevent accidents on both roads and pedestrian surfaces.
Notice in this photo how the snow has melted for several inches beyond the panels, even though the heating elements only “heat” the panels to a little above freezing. They never actually become warm.
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Scott is feeling recovered from his September open heart surgery. He just had a check up with his cardiologist who confirmed that the surgery was a great success. We continue to be grateful to everyone who sent prayers and well wishes during that scary time.
Now that the pandemic is winding down, the manufacturing company that we’ve been talking to for a couple of years finally allowed their team members to begin flying again. They flew four of their top people to Idaho for an all day meeting with us last month. It was extremely productive for them to finally see the Solar Road Panels in person. We were pleased with all that was discussed. As soon as SR5 is complete, we’ll finalize the mass manufacturing process.
In our last newsletter, we told you that Scott had submitted the paperwork to FCC (US) and ISED (Canada) for approval. Both were approved in February – a major step forward toward US and Canadian installations which require these certifications.
We are focused on preparing for early installations for Canada as well as the US. We have much interest from our neighbors to the north as well as all fifty American states.
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UL continues to be in process. SR5 must be completed first and like most companies, we’ve run into long delays due to the current supply chain problems. We were hoping to have SR5 tested by the end of March, but the delays have made that impossible. We are working on solving these issues.
In the last Newsletter we talked about finalizing the contract with an independent company to work on our software development. They have completed Phase I now and we’re pleased with their work. The software they created for us allows control of an installation from a remote location. Previously, we had to drive to our pilot site with a computer to change the LED patterns or read sensors at the Sandpoint Town Square. Now we can do this from any location through a cloud-based application. This will allow us to monitor/control any installation in the world. We’ll be able to read panel sensors and run diagnostics.
The Navy, Army, and Air Force are coming out with new grant/contract opportunities and the military continues to show interest in our technology. We’re working with a grant company that has close contacts at many bases. They helped get us two DoD grants last year. The most recent ones we have applied for have been approved but not funded. Our liaison company tells us this has become very commonplace. We’ll keep applying for more. Just recently, Scott was invited to virtually present to a number of bases simultaneously. We’ve had calls with other bases individually. The interest is definitely there from bases in several different states, but the funds for military grants seem to be in short supply now. Hopefully, that will change soon. In any case, our Solar Road Panels have been approved for use at U.S. military bases so it’s great to have that in place as we work toward full production.
The podcast we mentioned in our last Newsletter is now available at the Parking Podcast, which covers the $100 billion parking industry. They are a partner of the International Parking and Mobility Institute where Scott has been a Keynote Speaker. We were interviewed by their Executive Producer Isaiah Mouw. He had some creative questions for us, and we hope you’ll enjoy listening to us. It’s also available on our Video Page, where you can also find many other videos and podcasts featuring Solar Roadways.
Here we are several years ago with Isaiah Mouw when Solar Roadways was featured on the cover of the International Parking and Mobility Institute’s magazine called The Parking Professional:
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We hope you are following us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn as well as StartEngine.
Thank you all,
Scott and Julie Brusaw |
