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Switzerland plans solar panels over highways

Can the highway be used to generate electricity? That’s what Switzerland is currently looking into. Plans to roof highways with solar panels are becoming more concrete.

Switzerland wants to roof highways with solar panels

The Swiss government is currently having a concrete review carried out to determine whether sections of freeways are suitable for generating electricity with solar panels, and if so, which ones. Energy Minister Simonetta Sommaruga had asked the Swiss Federal Roads Office (Astra) to identify all suitable open stretches of highway and make the information available to the market for solar power production. That’s according to a report in the Neue Züricher Zeitung.

Of some 1,500 kilometers of highway in Switzerland, a full 1,300 kilometers that do not run in a tunnel are eligible, at least in theory. Astra is now to find out which stretches are really suitable for solar power production and put these sections out to tender free of charge.

The aim is to see whether the open highway sections can simply be fitted with a solar roof. In addition, noise barriers and galleries could be equipped with solar panels to generate energy. According to the study, noise barriers alone would have the potential to generate 55 GWh of electricity per year, or about 0.05 percent of Switzerland’s electricity consumption.

First pilot projects already initiated

A first pilot project for roofing highways has already been initiated in Switzerland and is expected to be tested soon. The company Energypier initially wants to roof a 1.6 km section in the canton of Valais with 40,000 solar panels and also equip it with wind turbines.

The company estimates that this section alone could produce 50 GWh of electricity per year in Switzerland’s Fully, supplying around 12,500 households. The pilot project is to be built and implemented over the course of the coming year. The turbines alone would produce 30 GWh per year, it adds.

Near Zurich, Energypier also plans to cover a 2.5 km section of the A4 highway with solar panels. Additional wind turbines are also to be used here, which together would produce around 80 GWh of electricity.

The company Helion already started in 2017 as part of a different pilot project to renew the solar panels used on the A13. These were installed back in 1989 and supplied 35 households completely with energy. The modernization measures have significantly improved electricity generation, which now produces 313,800 kWh for 92 households.

Up to 700 km of roofing

Energypier estimates that between 100 and 700 kilometers of highway in Switzerland could be equipped with solar roofs. Optimistically extrapolated, this could generate 10 TWh of solar power per year on the entire covered highway network.

This corresponds to about one third of what Swiss nuclear power plants are capable of producing per year. Corresponding photovoltaic systems over the Swiss highways would therefore be the significantly more environmentally friendly solution and at the same time would additionally contribute to noise protection.

Simon Lüthje

I am co-founder of this blog and am very interested in everything that has to do with technology, but I also like to play games. I was born in Hamburg, but now I live in Bad Segeberg.

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Can the highway be used to generate electricity? That’s what Switzerland is currently looking into. Plans to roof highways with solar panels are becoming more concrete. Switzerland wants to roof highways with solar panels The Swiss government is currently having a concrete review carried out to determine whether sections of freeways are suitable for generating … (Weiterlesen...)

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