Germany plans to install solar power plants over highways

A research project "PV-SÜD" has begun in Europe to assess the potential and prospects for solar power plants over motorways.

It is run by the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), the German Institute for Solar Energy Systems (Fraunhofer ISE) and the Forster Industrietechnik GmbH.

The idea is simple. Europe is a densely populated continent, there is little free land, it is expensive Why not build awnings over the Autobahns and cover them with solar modules?

There are about 13 thousand kilometers of autobahns in Germany, covering about 2.6% of the country's territory. If solar modules are installed above them, the total area of such a "power plant" will be approximately 337 square kilometers.

The project participants plan to use translucent photovoltaic panels for installation. They are only slightly worse than usual in terms of efficiency, but they do not turn the road into a dark tunnel [a similar approach with translucent modules is used in agrovoltaics].

In addition to generating electricity, a solar roof can also provide other benefits - protecting the roadway from precipitation and overheating, increasing its service life. In addition, by using the appropriate design, additional noise protection can be obtained.

It is estimated that a total of 56 GW of solar power plants can be installed over the autobahns in Germany, more than is installed in the country today. This additional capacity is capable of generating 47 TWh of electricity per year, or approximately 9% of the country's current electricity consumption.

In the first phase of the project, a concept will be developed with the selection of suitable solar panels and a prototype of the coating will be designed.

In the second phase, the prototype, equipped with instrumentation, will be installed “in the field” and tested on-line for a year.

There are several solar road projects in the world today, in which solar photovoltaic cells are integrated into the roadway. In my opinion, this technology has no prospects. Protection requirements are too high, technical challenges are complex, and efficiency is low. In general, it turns out to be expensive and inefficient.

But sunny "canopies" over the autobahns are quite a normal idea. In terms of the cost per unit of energy, they are unlikely to be able to compete with large ground-based solar power plants, since they require special, rather complex and material-intensive mounting structures. However, the increase in costs will obviously not be as significant as in the case of solar roads.

Source: https://www.c-o-k.ru/