Today the starting event of Interreg project Rolling Solar will take place at High Tech Campus in Eindhoven. Involving 32 parties from the Solliance Solar Research Network, located in Netherlands, Belgium and Germany, the project aims to generate at large scale solar electricity on public road infrastructure. The project is coordinated by TNO.

Solar modules will provide an increasing part of our future energy demand, as they can be produced at low cost and with high energy efficiency. But for power generation of hundreds of gigawatts, they require a large area to collect the sunlight: roadmaps towards 2050 predict total solar module areas up to 1.400 km2 for the Netherlands alone. To make optimal use of available area, and to generate power close to the location where it is needed, it is highly desirable to integrate solar modules into road construction materials as these represent a vast area of already built surfaces (that is over 1.000 km2 in the Netherlands) and power demand for transport will be increasingly electric.

The project aims to demonstrate innovative integration of thin and flexible solar cell materials in road surfaces and noise barriers, to reduce financial cost, and to develop guidelines for safe and durable integration. Regional industry and building companies, research institutes and public stakeholders are brought together in this consortium to stimulate both regional economy and energy transition.

The 3 year, 5.7 million Euro project, is made possible by financial support from the European Union through the Interreg EMR program, the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs, and the provinces of Noord-Brabant, Liège, Vlaams-Brabant and Limburg (B).

More info:

Ando Kuypers, Project Communication // +31 6 2299 5837 // ando.kuypers@tno.nl
Peter Toonssen, Program manager SRP Integration Application Technology // +31 6 2239 3405 // peter.toonssen@tno.nl