Oregon Accelerates Push For Solar-Energy Highways
Cleanbeta
Oregon is considering plans for what would be its second majorsolar-energy project sighted along a major highway. The so-called “solar highway”project has triggered a sharp reaction from many local residentsconcerned about the project’s destruction of local forest. Theinstallation is currently sited for the 43-acre plot of land near WestLinn, Oregon and will include solar arrays with a total of roughly17,000 solar panels laid out across about half the acreage of theentire site, according to reports at Oregon Live.
The panels would produce 3.2 million kilowatt-hours of powereach year, enough to power about one-sixth of the energy consumer inthe region by Oregon’s Department of Transportation,which wants to use 100 percent renewable energy to supply the 47million kilowatt-hours of energy consumed by the state transportationsystem annually.
The new solar energy site would deliver power into the PGE grid, which would then be sold to
Oregon’s DOT for the prevailing price of grid-based power. Theother is a prototype project that began last December just north of theI-5/205 interchange.
The project uses 600 panels to power freeway lights.
The Search for Environmentally-Sustainable Solutions & CleanTechnologies, Cleabeta is the blog of Clean Tech Law & Business.Clean Tech Law & Business is the firstpeer-reviewed journal devoted exclusively to legal and financialaspects of clean tech. Readers will receive academic-grade research andanalysis of the issues complicating the commercialization of criticaltechnologies from leading clean-tech authorities in law, finance,technology, government, non-profits and academia. CleanBeta is written byWilliam Pentland.¹ If you have any comments, questions or concernsabout content that appears on CleanBeta, please feel free to send themby email to w@cleanbeta.comArticles l Homepage