While “roadside solar” has operated successfully for almost 20 years in Europe, it has never been attempted in the United States. Oregon will be the first state to implement a highway solar project. The project is a 100 kilowatt solar array that will be situated at the interchange of Interstate 5 and Interstate 205. According to the Oregon Department of Transportation website (ODOT), they are not allowed, at this time, to generate more electricity than ODOT uses and sell that electricity at a profit. This is not of immediate concern to ODOT since it is estimated that approximately 120 miles of solar installations on the right of way will be needed to offset ODOT’s annual electrical use of 45 million kilowatt hours. While thinking about the vast amounts of land next to our countries’ highways, I hope that this project proves to be successful in encouraging other states to adopt solar power as a part of their energy mix.
For more information on this specific project, please click here to visit the ODOT’s website.
August 11, 2008
August 11, 2008 at 2:50 pm
What I found fascinating about this is that ODOT came up with the idea after watching an episode of NOVA on PBS. TV is awesome!
August 12, 2008 at 10:56 am
It is a great idea provided that the new low cost thin film solar panels are used An example of that are Nanosolar panels costing about $1/watt.
One thing disturbing in the article says “According to the Oregon Department of Transportation website (ODOT), they are not allowed, at this time, to generate more electricity than ODOT uses and sell that electricity at a profit.”
It seem to me that there are regulation barriers that prevent an the highway department from selling any excess electricity. Why would that be in an era of a deregulated energy market? It that assumption is true, then the laws need to be changed to allow both the public sector to sell electricity at a profit.