Project R-9387

Rolling Solar (Research)

The project aims to catalyze a lasting cross border collaboration between this industry, research and stakeholders on PV, materials, manufacturing, installation, grid, and road infrastructure, through development, dissemination and validation of knowledge. Goal is to technically enable local manufacturers and building and construction companies to realize cost effective integration of long lengths of solar cell materials into public infrastructure. As a result, large scale durable electricity generation without additional land use will be enabled close to point of use. For example, PV integrated in all 35000km of Dutch bicycle road would generate 15TWh/yr, equivalent to a CO2 reduction in the order of 5 million tonnes/year. A number of provinces, cities and commercial entities (NL, B) are already developing plans for demonstration projects on solar energy generation on and along road infrastructure (>4M€ before 2022) . This Interreg project will bring together the required consortium partners and enable them to realize such demonstration projects more effectively. It will do so by developing and testing the required thin film solar module materials and, based on the existing experience with silicon solar cells, by developing more effective strategies to incorporate them into road pavements and -furniture. The project will demonstrate real size test elements at Thor Campus (Genk) and Wijk van Morgen (between Aachen and Heerlen), and promote validation in infrastructural investments. However, actual infrastructure investments will be treated as pro memori in the here proposed EMR project. Four work packages are foreseen in collaboration with regional SME's: 1) Adaptation of flexible PV modules, 2) Integration and testing of solar modules in road construction elements 3) Smart electrical interconnection, and 4) Validation and industrialization.

01 September 2018 - 31 August 2022