The first cycle path covered by solar panels in Europe

A premiere was inaugurated in Germany a few days ago bicycle lane unique of its kind in Europe: it is completely covered by solar panels which simultaneously allow cyclists to transit in the shade and the electricity grid to accumulate zero-emission energy.

A bit like agrivoltaic systems, panels suspended from the ground that exploit solar energy and at the same time protect crops in the fields and avoid evaporation, the track is designed as an infrastructure capable of sheltering cyclists from the sun (but even from the rain) for a short initial stretch of 300 metres. Afterwards, they let the service provider know Badenov who built the plant in the German city of Freiburgright next to the city’s stadium, a possible expansion will be evaluated.

At the moment it is a pilot project which, if it works, can be replicated elsewhere. To achieve it, approximately 900 solar modules supplied by German panel manufacturer Solarwatt. According to plans, the solar roof will be able to generate about 280 MWh per yearenergy on which the nearby laboratories of the Fraunhofer Institute.

Since this is a first experiment, the doctor Karolina Baltins del Fraunhofer Institute and manager of the research team that deals with photovoltaics, explains that the Institute will not only use the solar energy obtained from the panels of the cycle path cover, but this will be “a prototype useful for developing new projects to respond to the different questions related to photovoltaics in urban areas”.

The aim of the work of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems is in fact to demonstrate, starting from the new plant, that the generation of renewable energy can also be implemented in densely populated urban areas and to achieve this it is necessary to think of models that do not hinder the hectic of cities and at the same time can provide, thanks to renewables, clean energy.

Even the mayor of Freiburg, Martin Hornduring the inauguration he actually recalled how his city and many other European realities “need such creative solutions to be able to truly achieve climate objectives”, while the top management of Badenova recalled how “this pilot project shows how urban spaces can be used twice: cyclists can ride the course safely and electricity is generated at the same time.”

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Currently in Freiburg, the actors involved in the development of the new track are already thinking about the future: through collaboration with engineers and service companies, they are thinking about how to create a sort of standard transport for the components of the cycle path (from the panels to the infrastructure) so that it is easily replicable elsewhere. The idea is in fact to ensure that the module “can be used in other locations even at lower costs” to create new clean energy systems, useful for the energy transition, “throughout Germany and elsewhere”.