SEJONG, South Korea — There is a five-and-a-50 % mile bicycle route sitting down in the middle of an eight-lane freeway, topped with a solar panel that lights up the streets under in South Korea.
But this is no regular bike path. What started as an thought to create clean energy whilst simultaneously offering people a place to training, South Korea developed this eco-helpful cycle lane that connects the metropolitan areas of Daejeon to Sejong — the administrative cash of South Korea — in 2014.
The 13-foot-broad path established in the center of a highway is special in South Korea, where by most bicycle paths are created adjacent to pedestrian streets. But what truly makes the route stand out is its 1-of-a-variety attribute — a solar panel-lined roof.
With 7,502 solar panels mounted at intervals of about 30 inches, the paneling covers 3 miles of the 5.5 mile biking freeway and are capable of making an once-a-year normal of 2,200 MWh of eco-helpful electrical energy that powers lots of of the streetlights and electronic displays in Sejong. In reality, the photo voltaic panels create an equivalent amount of electricity to electricity approximately 600 homes, according to South Korea’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation.
The Korea Western Electrical power Co., Ltd. — the general public company that manufactured the solar panel bicycle street — is in cost of sustaining the photo voltaic panels to retain up the electricity efficiency.
“Solar panels in public amenities are part of a development in clean power,” Kim Geun-ho, a researcher from the Eco-friendly Power Institute based in the region, instructed ABC Information. “At the commencing phase, solar power technology was generally built in extensive farmland and mountainous spots. It moved on to community facility rooftops, and last but not least have evolved to participate in the position of a shelter and ability generator at the exact time, in this case, a roof on top rated of a bicycle road.”
A number of other metropolitan governments in South Korea have executed the bike highway with photo voltaic panels, but this just one specific street in Sejong remains the longest and the only one established in the middle of a freeway.
“This is the quickest bike street I can take from my property in Daejeon to my workplace in Sejong,” Park Yoon-soo who commutes to get the job done every single day employing the photo voltaic panel bicycle road for the last two decades, told ABC News. “I have constantly appreciated the solar panel roofs due to the fact they turn out to be a fantastic shade beneath powerful sunlight, and a roof when it rains.”