Slar Panels? On Side Of Roads

[ll_billym]

Recently solar panels? have been installed on the side of many main roads and motorways.  The panel itself is about 50cm square on top of a 2.5m pole, the pole is always painted green.  They seem to be in the middle of nowhere with nothing connected to them.  They have been around for about a year



Can anyone shed any light on this?

[chrisn]

Yeah i see them everywhere now.

I beleive they are "standalone" signs ie they don't use mains electricity, and as the only place i've seen them is on the approach to a bend in the road, i can only assume they are to warn you to slow down.

[rja211077]

"can anyone shed any light on this" - one would hope so, or they won't be of much use. arf!

[sddsddean]

Assuming thay are not attached to blue poles, to power the 'Trafficmaster' detectors, they will almost certainly be for detector loop counters. The loops are cut into the road surface (you can see them at approaches to traffic lights) and when used 'in the middle of nowhere' they will count traffic flow (usually there is a little box in the verge. This can be as small as a 6" cube). Obviously, if in the middle of nowhere, there may not be a readily available power source, so solar is ideal. Lots of countries have their motorway emergency phones powered by solar power as well, to save on running expensive cabling.

[jaydee101]

I could be wrong, but I thought these were something to do with the Met Office measuring how many hours of sunlight each day in different areas.

[mr. piper]

you are, they're not.