Strips of photovoltaic panels along motorways and expressways, in the middle of interchanges or even in the form of shade structures on rest areas. It’s still science fiction for now, but not for long.
The bill on the acceleration of renewables, which will be presented in September to the Council of Ministers, should lift a certain number of regulatory obstacles on what is called “the abandoned road or motorway”, that is to say the available spaces which are not directly used for operation. “The surfaces in play can be significant”, emphasizes the explanatory memorandum to the bill, which refers to a potential of 2.5 GW. The objective of the public authorities is to reach 100 GW in 2050. Today, the installed capacity is only 15 MW.
Until now, the town planning code prohibited the installation of solar panels less than 75 to 100 meters from the road on these neglected sites. And to obtain exemptions, on what generally belongs to the public domain of the State, it was necessary to launch several complex procedures. The bill is intended to simplify things.
Find land
“Equipping the motorways is a step in the right direction, even if it doesn’t solve everything. Because today, the search for land has become the main source of concern for operators, who have to deal with the skyrocketing price of land,” says David Gréau, the deputy general manager of Enerplan, the union of professionals in the sector.
Motorway companies, which are only land concessionaires, are actively preparing. They are already working hard to equip themselves with charging stations, while demand from motorists has quadrupled in the space of a year, according to initial estimates.
At APRR, the second-largest motorway group in France, two solar power plants have just been inaugurated in Saône-et-Loire and Savoie, after several years of studies and authorization requests for areas that had been used for the construction of the highway. “Now, we hope that it will go faster in the assembly of the files. In any case, we have a lot of requests from operators,” says a spokesperson.
APRR works in particular with TotalEnergies. The group has already identified more than a hundred hectares. Equipped with panels, they would cover the equivalent of the electricity consumption of 50,000 people, says the group.
Land already artificialized
At Vinci, a study was launched two years ago to list the available land. The potential has been assessed at 1,000 hectares across its entire network, which corresponds to approximately 1 GW of solar energy.
“Selecting locations is done according to a clever mix of several criteria, explains Raphaël Ventre, Marketing Director of Vinci Autoroutes and President of Solarvia, the subsidiary that was created specifically to develop the projects. You need fairly flat land, often already artificial on which no fauna or flora has developed, benefiting from a good level of sunshine, not too far from the connection networkand where the panels can fit into the landscape. »
Anti-glare devices
The group is counting on several hundred photovoltaic parks by 2030. From 2024, the first 25 should see the light of day. And next year, 25 carpool parking lots should also be equipped.
Vinci will also launch experiments to create linear solar power plants which would be positioned, for example, on central reservations or along guardrails, with anti-dazzle devices. This potential would be added to the 1,000 hectares already identified. But the group recognizes that it is only at the very beginning of feasibility studies.