Switzerland’s plan for its energy independence: install solar panels next to its highways

Let’s do numbers. In Spain we have a road network of 165,400 kilometersof which about 17,400km They are high-capacity roads: an extensive tangle of rest areas, noise barriers and toll booths. Not all of them have the same characteristics —there are urban and other remote highway sections—, but in general they represent a vast area to, say, install solar panels. In Switzerland they have had a similar idea for their network.

The Swiss Federal Council It has just modified its National Road Ordinance with a purpose that has very little to do with mobility: what the Swiss authorities are looking for is to allow the generation of renewable energy in free spaces distributed along the main roads of the country. If all goes according to plan, limits PV Magazinewill come into force already in October.

After pulling out the calculator, Switzerland has estimated that between its highways and railway lines it could achieve a sensible amount of energy: about 101 GWh per year. Of that sum, 55 GWh would come from national highways and 46 from spaces distributed by the railway infrastructure.

Make space profitable… and gain energy

The data is so juicy that the own Federal Highway Office (FEDRO) has already begun to exploit it for its electricity consumption with installations at points close to tunnels and maintenance centers. Now want go one step further and give other surfaces —acoustic barriers or rest areas— to those who want and can take advantage of them to fix photovoltaic panels.

The Swiss authorities do not want to wait and it is likely that at the end of this year FEDRO opens the term for those who are interested in reserving spaces.

“The photovoltaic potential along national highways is 55 GWh per year. FEDRO already uses part of that potential for its own electricity consumption”, explains the Swiss Confederation itself, which details that until now the organism has resorted only to certain spaces, such as the vicinity of the tunnels. “To exploit the potential even better, the other suitable areas, for example noise barriers or rest areas, are now made available to third parties free of charge.”

The regulatory change approved a few days ago in the National Highway Ordinance can also be applied to other renewable energy generation systems, such as wind power.

Swiss not the first which proposes taking advantage of surfaces now underused to generate energy. A few months ago the Canadian firm Mitrex announced an alliance with several companies to manufacture photovoltaic noise barriers for highways. The panels reduce noise, limiting disturbance to nearby populations, while generating electricity. A priori, on average each kilometer in which the new device is installed will be able to generate more than 1.2 MW.

In France they have also had a like idea: build a photovoltaic installation in a large area along the A19 motorway capable of producing an average of 6,100 MWh per year. Much closer, in Barcelona, ​​even a curious “solar-powered pavement” has been tested: small plots of land that incorporate photovoltaic modules and are capable of generating energy.

Other initiatives with a similar philosophy —taking advantage of public spaces, of roads, more specifically, to generate energy— have been registered in France, China, Holland or the USA, sometimes with results that left much to be desired. In the region of Normandy, in France, for example, they inaugurated in 2016 a one kilometer section with 2,800 m2 of photovoltaic panels that accumulated problems from the beginning, with a result lower than expected.

Cover image | Kecko (Flickr)