Florida city uses solar sidewalk to power traffic lights

TAMPA: What if a sidewalk could store energy and power traffic lights to cover potential power outages? That's the innovative idea that an American city has put into practice.

Particularly at risk from hurricanes, the municipality of Tampa (located in northwest Florida) is sometimes confronted with power outages. This is a major problem, which can quickly turn dangerous when it affects road traffic, for example if traffic lights are not working.

To remedy this, the city has been testing a new system since autumn: 84 solar panels have been installed on the surface of a sidewalk. The goal is to harness the Florida sunshine and store energy in the panels to power traffic lights in case they are hit by a power outage.

According to Brandon Campbell, this solution is more reliable as the backup generators in place (which can be deployed to any intersection) have sometimes proven inadequate in number and signal lights with a backup battery have a lifespan of about eight hours... compared with three days for this solar sidewalk!

The city of Tampa collaborated with Canadian company Solar Earth  Technologies to carry out this project.

Tampa isn't the first city in the world to opt for a solar sidewalk solution. In the spring of 2021, Barcelona City Hall covered 50 sq m of sidewalk with photovoltaic panels. This experiment aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city, which is targeting carbon neutrality by 2050.

This type of initiative also exists in France: in Jan 2019, 56 sq m of photovoltaic slabs were installed in Bobigny in the Greater Paris area, in order to illuminate a bicycle path located under a bridge along the Ourcq Canal.