The French Government is planning to install 1,000km of road with specially designed solar panels over the next five years.

The Wattway photovoltaic panels design is developed under a collaboration between transport infrastructure company Colas and France’s National Institute for Solar Energy (INES).

Sanctioned by the France’s Agency of Environment and Energy Management, the project aims at supplying renewable power to about five million people across France.

"The project aims at supplying renewable power to about five million people across France."

Introduced for the first time on public roads, the project will see solar panels being glued on top of the existing roads, instead of involving the additional trouble of replacing the road or removing its surface.

The Wattway network will be built out of 15cm photovoltaic panels made of a thin polycrystalline silicon film and enforced with a resin substrate coating.

The layered structure is 7mm-thick and provides a stronger resistance and grip to the panels, reducing the risk of accidents and ensuring safe driving.

Colas noted that the 20m² of Wattway panels will ensure the supply of enough electricity to power a single average home in France.

A 1km stretch of Wattway road will also be able to ‘provide the electricity to power public lighting in a city of 5,000 inhabitants’, as reported by Treehugger.

It is reported that the panels are also weatherproof, equipped with the silicon cells safely encapsulated to keep them dry in the rain. In addition, the material is so thin that it can adapt to thermal dilation in the pavement, as told by Science Alert.

According to Global Construction Review, the tenders for ‘Positive Energy’ initiative by France have already been issued, and tests on the solar roadway panels are expected to commence later this year.

The Netherlands was the first to install glass-coated solar panels last year on the 70m test bike path, which generates 3,000kWh of electricity.