The Netherlands being the forward thinking and boundary pushing country they are have replaced streetlights on a small stretch of highway lasting about 500 meters long with glow in the dark road markings. These road marks, created by Studio Roosegaarde, was promised back in 2012, but has had difficulty being put into use due to a lot of government red tape that needed to be cut through. Studio Roosegaarde is the social design lab of Daan Roosegaarde. It’s based in both Waddinxveen, Netherlands and Shanghai, China. The studio has the vision of bringing technology, design, and art to the real world and exploring on their relationships with real people.
Roosegaarde Studio’s founder Daan stated that he was in his car in the Netherlands and was amazed by the millions we spend on roads, but no one really seems to care about them. So much money is being put into powering streetlights for hours at a time, when the road marks would be able to save a massive percentage of the energy. The markings are said to be powered by sunlight and have enough charge throughout the day to last about eight hours.
Although the product has just come out, and obviously has not been thoroughly tested enough to see what weather and wear and tear can do to the strips, the idea of saving a massive amount of energy from streetlights to an almost Tron-like future is very exciting. If this becomes internationally used it will be a just the first step to a very strong and green future.