Oregon begins building first "solar highway" project

Just over a year ago, we passed off a far-out proposal that would turn highways into wind farms. Now, however, the state of Oregon is proving that such feats are actually within reach as it breaks ground on the first so-called "solar highway" demonstration project. The project will be installed at the Interstate 5 and Interstate 205 interchange in Tualatin, where it will cover around 8,000 square feet and produce 112,000 kilowatt hours per year. The total cost for the 104-kilowatt solar photovoltaic system is $1.3 million, and believe it or not, it should be completed and operational in December of this year.

[Via Digg]

[keyboardstyli @ Aug 17th 2008 9:42AM]

Good Job!

[Xtole @ Aug 18th 2008 5:52PM]

ya, because there's a ton of sunshine filled days in Oregon. /fail

[sean @ Aug 17th 2008 9:55AM]

a 28% offset? That's terrible, and nearly pointless...

[Reader @ Aug 17th 2008 10:52AM]

It'll only take 175 years to return the investment (6.2 cents a kilowatt hour), assuming no one ever builds there and these solar panels are of godly quality. Oh, and that the sun actually shines enough (unlikely).

[Setnev @ Aug 17th 2008 11:57AM]

@Reader

Who cares, they aren't selling the power to consumers, they're using the power for their own purposes to take the extra load off from PGE and save themselves a few dollars in the long run from not paying rising energy costs. Its all on their website. They are not selling the power to the average household, they're using it for private use.

http://www.oregon.gov/ODOT/HWY/OIPP/inn_solarhighway.shtml

Quote from site above:
"The objective of the solicitation is to procure the generation of at least 2,000,000 kilowatt hours per year of renewable electricity from ODOT-owned rights of way, properties, facilities and other built assets, at no greater cost than ODOT is currently paying for power. The successful third party or parties will construct at their own expense, own, operate and maintain the solar systems and sell all electricity generated by the systems to ODOT under a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), for a term from 6 to 20 years, or longer."

What they're doing is spelled out in The Procurement Section. How much power does a Highway Department need? Enough to build their own solar power plant, not enough to rely on big energy companies who rape you with increasing energy costs blaming it on high gas prices.

[Ridgerunner @ Aug 17th 2008 12:02PM]

@Setnev; No -- you're missing the point. That same $1.3mm could be used to buy energy for the NEXT 100 YEARS+. It's not some free pile of money sitting around somewhere that just magically appeared out of thin air -- it's money that came from Oregon resident's taxes. Government has a fiduciary responsibility to not waste it on boondoggle grandstanding projects. They would be FAR better off buying $1.3mm worth of renewable energy on the open market if they really were concerned about environment / costs / etc.

[Ignatius @ Aug 17th 2008 12:09PM]

Even if I was an Oregon resident, I'd rather have my money for taxes be spent on alternative fuel sources. Even if you buy $1.3 million worth of coal, the coal's gonna run out.

Hell, if they really want to impress people, they should go all out and retrofit buildings with huge solar panel arrays...

[Jeffrye @ Aug 17th 2008 9:40PM]

28% is a significant chunk and if you actually think of this as a beginning development and R&D towards the future then we are on to a lot in the future of relieving Power companies from the many burdens they so often complain of :). 28% here, 30% there... and growing. You know the car did not start off using only gasoline, many early cars were coal or BATTERY powered! try thinking a little deeper.

[Richard Lai @ Aug 17th 2008 9:52AM]

London wouldn't be able to use this - we have the world's longest car park here, as we often say.

[McFly @ Aug 17th 2008 8:17PM]

don't you need sun-light for solar energy?

[mike @ Aug 18th 2008 1:22AM]

@McFly - are you referring to London or Oregon? Neither are optimal locations for a solar farm.

[Tom Boucher @ Aug 17th 2008 10:18AM]

I've been to Portland, Oregan many times and the word 'solar' doesn't come to mind. Overcast, and raining.

What the heck are they putting solar collectors up there for?

[JohnnyBoy @ Aug 17th 2008 12:59PM]

My thoughts exactly. If you want some kind of return on taxpayer investment, locations that would come to mind are Florida, Texas or New Mexico. But *Oregon*?

[TVGenius @ Aug 17th 2008 3:32PM]

Yuma, AZ. In the Guinness Book of World Records as the place with the most sunshine in the world. Two SMALL solar demonstration projects (one in a city park, the other on the roof of a community college science building), and that's it. Go figure.

[loosely_coupled @ Aug 17th 2008 6:44PM]

IT's because they have the will in the state. Obviously the best solar areas are southern/inland california, just about all of nevada, new mexico, arizona, and a large portion of texas. The problem is getting the states and or federal government to start building out the projects! But there are also good areas for solar in a few parts of (eastern) Oregon and Washington, southern Idaho, parts of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana

[kyle allen @ Aug 17th 2008 6:44PM]

its been sunny here for the past few days! its amazing! i didnt know the sky was the same color as the engadget logo! THAT IS SO COOL!

[hotcarbon @ Aug 17th 2008 10:14PM]

another reason to hope for a sunny day where i live

seriously this time of year is the only thime that it will be useful lol spring and fall waaaay to rainy and cloudy most of the time and the sun is rare in the winter

[Russ @ Aug 17th 2008 10:41PM]

@loosely_coupled - couldn't agree more!

sure there's cities with more sun - but portland has something better, the *will* to do something:
http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-02/americas-50-greenest-cities?page=1

[ngamer007 @ Aug 17th 2008 10:19AM]

A neat idea for already used space, so will this run between the two opposing lanes?

[Ignatius @ Aug 17th 2008 3:48PM]

That'd be a terrible idea. Then as soon as a drunk guy decides to jump the barrier with his busted arse car, all the expensive solar panels shatter.

[JohnnyBoy @ Aug 17th 2008 4:57PM]

"Then as soon as a drunk guy decides to jump the barrier with his busted arse car, all the expensive solar panels shatter."

Woaaaw! How many hits would THAT YouTube video get?

[Bunson @ Aug 17th 2008 6:10PM]

What's the point of it being by a highway?

[thatrotierkid @ Aug 18th 2008 8:53AM]

unused government owned land.

[Precise @ Aug 17th 2008 10:24AM]

That sounds great. I'd like to see such projects come down here to Florida.

[keyboardstyli @ Aug 17th 2008 10:41AM]

Well, it's a start at least for now, perhaps in the future it would be 100% or even greater.

[rtdunham @ Aug 17th 2008 10:30AM]

it looks like the roughly 13' X 600' strip will be on highway right-of-way alongside the actual highway.

shortsighted. someday power will be generated by solar capture built into the roadways themselves. Only the acreage of parking lots might rival that vast surface area, exposed to the sun all day, east-to-west, north-to-south. it might sound like science fiction now, but wait--and watch, as the technology is developed and the infrastructure requires replacement. In the 50s the Eisenhower-prodded Interstate highway system was built for reasons of national defense, to allow massive troop and equipment movement that couldn't be accommodated by existing state and national highways. But it also altered the face of America economically and culturally. Ironically, less than 100 years later, the revision of that Interstate system will once again address the nation's defense, by reducing our need for foreign oil. And at the same time it will once again dramatically alter our economy and culture.

[Linda in Texas @ Aug 17th 2008 9:35PM]

I appreciate you thinking out of the box. We do that kind of thinking a lot around here. Texas has accepted wind and towers are all over our hills. I don't see any problems with it and they are not that distracting from the view.

Along the highways is right-of-way. We own it and should put it to use. As solar becomes cheaper and innovation finds better and faster ways to get it to the public, we should see it along side our roadways. In Texas, our blinking lights along highways are current powered by solar panels on the poles with a battery attached lower down the pole.

I am personally looking at electric vehicles. I can make it to work on our town streets with a neighborhood electric vehicle. As a food shopper, I have cut back a lot. No movies, no eating out and I am very price sensitive.

I am cheated everyday we continue to support big oil. Remember that we are paying those big companies to mine the oil for us. We own it to begin with.

[thatrotierkid @ Aug 18th 2008 9:02AM]

@linda

i lived in houston for a portion of my childhood so i am glad that Texas is starting to turn to alternative fuel sources. i will be honest, i never expected to hear the words "Texas" and "thinking out of the box" in the same sentence. i am not saying anything about you, but there are a lot of people down there, and i am sure you know the ones i am talking about, who are so set in their ways you cant talk to them.

also, your argument that its insulting that we pay the oil companies to take the oil that we already own out of the ground. thats not true. first of all, the oil companies put a significant amount of money and risk into locating oil reserves and drilling for them. also, the oil that comes out of the ground cant go right into your engine, it has to be processed in a refinery. if it was as simply as investing a few thousand dollars to get the oil and you could put it in your car then everyone would just drill themselves. however it doesnt work like and thats why we pay the oil companies to drill, refine, and transport the oil that "we own"

[Ben Grimsbo @ Aug 17th 2008 10:31AM]

Yah, because Oregon is a great place to have sunlight, especially that particular area.

Seriously, 3/4ths of the year is spent under the clouds.

[p @ Aug 17th 2008 10:35AM]

Interesting article, but how about linking to the original piece, rather than a Digg link. As you guys seem to make your living by reading original work, re-writing it & passing it on, I would think ethically you should at very least link to the original. Digg did not create this story.

[rubcn @ Aug 17th 2008 11:20AM]

click on the pic

[Dogan Weber @ Aug 17th 2008 10:34AM]

Absolutely awsome. An aditional thought: Here in Germany we estimate a 400-450 kilowatt hours-per-year approx. power consumption for a four headed family. I don't know any specific numbers, bun maybe its comparable to your homes. Assuming that these numbers have a valid character for your american standards, 112 000 kwh/y will be enough for 250 houses, pretty weak though.

8000 squarefeet are aproximately 2.8 km², keeping the low inhabitants - density of the US and A in mind, relativizes the weak output!

[schmitty338 @ Aug 17th 2008 12:21PM]

just a note, 8000 sq ft is not NEARLY 2.8KM^2....it's actually only 0.0007432 square KM...

[Rob @ Aug 17th 2008 12:55PM]

Really? The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year (at least according to the articles that said Gore used 20x the national average). Wonder exactly how Americans consume so much more than Germans? My guess is you Germans are better at keeping your wifes from leaving lights on.

[Rob @ Aug 17th 2008 12:56PM]

Really? The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year (at least according to the articles that said Gore used 20x the national average). Wonder exactly how Americans consume so much more than Germans? My guess is you Germans are better at keeping your wifes from leaving lights on.

[Vince @ Aug 17th 2008 5:33PM]

You're completely wrong schmitty. You obviously have no sense of what a kilometer is, because that is a ridiculous assertion. A square mile would be 5280 square feet, and a mile is 1.61 km. Thus, it is around 2.44 square km, according to my calculation. Google calculator isn't as smart as you obviously think it is.

[wmatt @ Aug 17th 2008 5:55PM]

You are very bold for being so wrong, vince. 5280 square feet would be a 5280'x1' rectangle, not anything near the area of a square mile. One square mile is 5280' long by 5280' wide, which means that any third grader would know that to get the area of a rectangle or square, you multipy length by width, not length by 1, to get the area in square units (27,878,400). By your calculations, a reasonably large house would occupy one square mile of area. Does that sound logically reasonable? Unless you are less than 10 years old, your immense stupidity is not justified.

[schmitty338 @ Aug 17th 2008 9:28PM]

Haha....wow Vince, you just made a complete ass of yourself. I hope you have learned something today.

[Skyride @ Aug 18th 2008 11:03AM]

but you were even more wrong schimtty. :)

[schmitty338 @ Aug 18th 2008 12:48PM]

@Skywide

What? How was I wrong?

[Sy @ Aug 17th 2008 10:39AM]

I live in this area and they have a huge problems with drug addicts stripping the city of copper wires for drug money. Solar panels just provide another rich target for them. ROFL.

[Scott @ Aug 17th 2008 2:47PM]

Absolutely...Unless these things are under 24x7 guard if there is any valuable metal material there for methheads they'll be stripped and have to be replaced/rebuilt like clock work.

[Monkeyhole @ Aug 18th 2008 7:16PM]

Have you seen how fast people go through that interchange? I used to live in Clackamas and work in Tualatin... I thought I was going to die every day on my way home. Any methhead trying to get to that installation are going to end up a small, red mark on the road.

Unless it's rush hour, but most of that stuff gets taken at night.

[Jack @ Aug 17th 2008 6:33PM]

I am just afraid that malicious teenagers will start chucking rocks at the panels breaking the glass from impact. Anyone else have this thought going through his/ her mind while reading this?

[Joseph @ Aug 17th 2008 11:34AM]

What will they do about people who will try and steal the valuable materials the solar cells are made of?

[Maeztro @ Aug 17th 2008 11:18AM]

Whether it works or not...I love the effort...remember, these are the early stages of alternative fuels...

[Ridgerunner @ Aug 17th 2008 11:40AM]

I really can't understand all you chearleaders for this project. Did none of you ever pass basic math class? Maybe economics was never part of your school curriculum?

Even when calculating a cost per kilowatt hour that keeps pace with a reasonable projection for inflation (4% per annum), this thing will take over 100 years to pay back its investment. Do any of you *really* believe this installation will still be up & running, as is, from it's initial $.13mm cost, in more than a century??

This is nothing but a waste of taxpayer money on a symbolic project -- you might as well spend the same money to grace the Portland waterfront with sculptures for the "environmental impact" it will have. From a political standpoint it's great -- every politician who voted for this can now slap a "Green" label on their candidacy, and point to a nice big shiny thing alongside the highway, where everyone can see. All of this in one of the more rainy states in the country.

Oh, I know, I know... It's important we send a message, and we have to start somewhere, and besides, it's for the children. Spare me.

I'd much rather see *serious* investment in unused federal land in Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, etc., with more efficient systems tied into the overall grid. (See http://www.engadget.com/2008/02/26/280-megawatt-solar-plant-headed-to-arizona-desert/)

Not local political grandstanding masquerading as "green initiatives"

[Ridgerunner @ Aug 17th 2008 11:41AM]

Typo: $1.3mm, not $.13mm

[Ridgerunner @ Aug 17th 2008 11:57AM]

Typo: $1.3mm, not $.13mm

[Pingmeister @ Aug 17th 2008 12:33PM]

There are roads in California (a relatively YOUNG state) that have been there for well over a hundred years (El Camino, Alameda De Las Pulgas) and stretch across a large portion of the state.

I don't see why these roads won't be fundamentally in the same location for the next 100 years and beyond.

It's easy to paint a near-future with giant technological leaps but the bottom line is we've been driving cars for 100 years and there's nothing out there that looks like it will change things soon.

With less maintenance than just about ANY other energy project this structure could be dribbling in electricity for well beyond the projected 100 years.