September 5th, 2020 by Zachary Shahan
A trio of technology leaders in Europe — the Austrian Institute of Technology, Fraunhofer ISE in Germany, and Forster Industrietechnik in Switzerland — is working to develop a solar canopy system for highways in order to tap into the vast, under-utilized road network for clean electricity generation.
The PV-SÜD initiative is still at the concept stage, and then will move to implementing a pilot project on a real-life roadway.
Image (not directly related to this initiative) by LABOR3 for Sonnenkraft/HSH.
The solar power infrastructure would need to be developed to handle things a bit differently from rooftop solar panels or even solar panel carports. For one, you wouldn’t want tens of thousands of dollars (or euros) of damage every time there’s an accident. So, the system would need to be developed in a way that it would be especially sturdy or resilient in the case of impact. It would also need special design to manage wind low as well as rain and snow in a way that is compatible with the needs of the roadway network. Naturally, traffic safety is another unique concern, and efficient maintenance would be important to making it cost competitive.
What’s the point? Well, there are also some inherent benefits to such a system. “In addition to the double use of space, the scientists expect other positive outcomes, including the protection of road surfaces from precipitation and overheating,” Sandra Enkhardt writes for PV Magazine. Such a system can also help reduce noise pollution.
In the end, whether or not this is a good idea comes down to whether the cost savings from the various benefits outweigh the extra costs compared to other projects the agencies overseeing roadway budgets could implement.
The concept is certainly appealing on the surface. We have an enormous amount of underutilized road space across the world. How much of our electricity needs could be satisfied simply by putting solar panels over those roads? As long as the designers create a system that provides satisfactory durability and resilience at a compelling cost, it seems this is an option that could scale up quickly from fairly uniform highway design and economies of scale. Protection of roadways in order to help them last longer before needing repair is one potentially large benefit itself, even before you get into the electricity generation benefit.
The PV-SÜD project is receiving funding from:
- Germany’s Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (BMK)
- the Austrian Agency for the Promotion of Research (FFG)
- the German Federal Ministry of Transport
- Switzerland’s Federal Roads Office.
This is certainly not the first time this idea has been floated. We’ll see if this European team can help it to actually go somewhere.
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About the Author
Zachary Shahan is tryin’ to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao.
Zach has long-term investments in NIO [NIO], Tesla [TSLA], and Xpeng [XPEV]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.