Driving towards the Oregon Solar Highway Project

I’ve driven past it probably hundreds of times, but was not aware of the Oregon Solar Highway Project until recently.  The first in the nation, a demonstration project was installed last year to showcase the use of highway rights-of-way for solar power generation.

Lest you think that Oregon is the capital of solar power (it probably is, in the U.S.), Germany and Switzerland have had solar highway projects in place for 2 decades!  Plus, Idaho – right next door to Oregon – has now joined in, installing its own solar highways recently.

Back to Oregon, however.  This is a really great video on the ODOT solar project:

Oregon's Solar Highway Project

At the interchange of I-5 and I-205, a 104 kW solar PV system, consisting of 594 panels have been installed.  The solar highway project generates nearly 30% of the electricity required for the lights and signage at the interchange.  A great start, don’t you think?

But what if we want to use solar energy to power the entire Oregon Highway system?  Only about 20 more miles of similar installations would be required.

Hopefully, we’ll go down that road, and cross that bridge soon.  With thousands of miles of highways in Oregon, we should be able to find a few more suitable sites for solar panel installations.