Solar highways officially opened

Minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen opened the innovative Solar Highways project in Uden on 18 February 2019. By plugging in the plug, she, together with the cooperation partners, symbolically gave the go-ahead for the 400-metre-long solar noise barrier that has been erected on the east side of the A50 motorway in Uden in recent months.

Incidentally, it was a double party because ten days earlier Solar Highways won  the Innovation Prize of the Glass Award 2019. The award ceremony took place on 8 February, during the Bouwbeurs 2019 in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht.

Solar Highways is an initiative of Rijkswaterstaat and its project partners ECN (part of TNO) and SEAC and the municipality of Uden. It concerns a noise barrier in which two-sided solar panels, so-called bi-facial solar panels are integrated. According to the parties involved, the concept on this scale has not been developed and applied before. It is a pilot project, made possible in part by LIFE+ funding from the European Union. Solar Highways is a development of Heijmans (contractor), Van Campen/BAYARDS (aluminium constructor) and Scheuten Glas from Venlo.

The test phase has started and green electricity is being generated. For 18 months, the Solar Energy Application Centre (SEAC) measures the energy yield of the solar noise barrier.]

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