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Switzerland to Add More Solar Power to Rooftops and Highway Noise Barriers

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23 Nov, 2024

This post was originally published on Eco Watch

In Switzerland, highway noise barriers surrounding the Oberland Autobahn near Wangen-Brüttisellen will soon provide solar power.

Last year, Switzerland’s Federal Roads Office made the surfaces of highway noise barriers free and set out to cover 350 of them in solar panels. Swiss officials estimated that the arrays could generate 100 gigawatt hours of clean energy per year, CleanTechnica reported.

The project is now kicking off with the first two privately owned solar arrays for the A15 Oberland motorway, which will be completed over the first half of 2025. As TA Zurich reported, these photovoltaic installations are expected to provide about 500,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year.

The first solar arrays will be operated by Lima Solar AG, which has had to overcome several hurdles before starting the installation, including finding low-cost, low-glare panels that won’t distract drivers.

However, despite the hurdles, the company has now paved the way for other noise barrier solar projects to move forward at a faster pace.

One ongoing challenge involves connecting the private solar arrays to the electric grid, particularly in more rural areas, and establishing a marketplace for the generated power. As TA Zurich reported, covering the noise barriers alone would only provide a limited amount of clean energy for residents.

However, Switzerland passed a law in 2023 requiring new buildings with 3,300 square feet (300 meters) or more of roof space to install solar panels. In 2024, Zurich passed a law requiring solar panels on buildings, new or old, with roofs at least 3,300 square feet by 2040.

By installing more panels in already developed spaces that are otherwise unused, Switzerland is incorporating more efficient and affordable ways to install solar.

There has been promising research on the benefits of adding photovoltaic installations along highways to power local communities and support EV charging infrastructure.

A study published in November 2023 found that deploying solar panels on highway noise barriers along highways in the Netherlands could provide around 200 gigawatt hours per year of energy. Further, the study determined that solar energy along highways, both on noise barriers and on public lands around highways, could supply enough power for highway EV charging stations to charge more than 300 electric vehicles per day, which would meet about 80% of expected demand by 2030.

According to a study published in August 2024, installing solar panels overtop of highways could be an effective way to reduce both emissions and traffic accidents. The report found that installing highway solar panels globally could reduce carbon emissions by about 28%. By putting solar arrays over highways, the researchers of that study estimated a reduction in global traffic deaths by about 10.8%, because the solar panels would protect the highways from precipitation.

As the project along the Oberland Autobahn revealed, there are still challenges to low-glare solar panel costs and delayed governmental approval processes, but as more companies work to establish these types of systems, the cost and time to complete the projects is expected to decline.

Solar panels installed as part of the sound barrier along an express road in Hangzhou in east China’s Zhejiang province, on Jan. 8, 2024. LONG WEI / Feature China / Future Publishing via Getty Images

The post Switzerland to Add More Solar Power to Rooftops and Highway Noise Barriers appeared first on EcoWatch.

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Vegetable oil waste sees new life through WORLD project

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The Politecnico di Milano, coordinator of the Waste Oils RecycLe and Development (WORLD) project, proposes a circular and sustainable process to turn used vegetable oil into a valuable resource.

Vegetable oil is used widely around the world, and cooking and food preservation is said to generate a huge amount of waste oil. Around four million tonnes of used vegetable oil are produced in Europe each year, representing just 4% of the total global amount of the widespread product. If not properly disposed of, the waste can lead to significant environmental impacts.

The goal of the WORLD project is to optimise waste vegetable oil treatment processes while improving the quality of end products, reducing waste and fostering European independence in the supply of critical raw materials.

The project proposes to recycle used vegetable oil, yielding materials used as bio-lubricants, air purification devices and fine chemical components from petroleum-free precursors. These applications are presented as a supply chain parallel to their well-known use in the production of biodiesel, although this is limited by law to 10% and concerns only the purest fraction of the waste.

In addition to economic and technological benefits, the project has a strong social and environmental impact: raising awareness of correct waste oil collection can reduce public costs related to incorrect disposal and prevent environmental damage. In addition, a life cycle analysis (LCA) will be conducted to assess the best strategies to minimise ecological, economic and social impacts by adopting a ‘zero waste’ approach.

The project study was published by the British Royal Society of Chemistry in the international journal RSC Sustainability.

“We started by observing that the waste vegetable oil recycling industry is currently based on simple decantation and filtration processes, without adequate scientific optimisation. We therefore analysed two alternative techniques — bentonite treatment and water washing — to improve their efficiency and reduce their environmental impact,” explained study co-author Andrea Mele, from the ‘G. Natta’ Department of Chemistry, Materials and Chemical Engineering at the Politecnico di Milano.

“Through an experimental approach based on the design of experiments (DoE) methodology and multivariate statistical analysis, we optimised key parameters such as temperature, pH, bentonite concentration and oil-to-water ratio. The results showed that washing with water at 75°C and pH 6 guarantees the best performance in terms of yield, productivity and environmental sustainability, minimising the production of waste and the carbon impacts of the process,” continued co-author Alberto Mannu, who recently transferred from the Politecnico di Milano to the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at the University of Brescia.

Thanks to the WORLD project, a mathematical model developed from the collected data yields predictions of equivalent CO2 emissions according to operating conditions, providing the recycling industry with a practical tool for optimising processes in line with environmental certification standards.

This scientifically validated approach marks a step forward in the transition towards an efficient and sustainable circular economy. It is said to form part of the key principles of green chemistry, open new prospects for sustainability and efficiency, and may be highly competitive from a technical/economic perspective in models of the circular economy.

The WORLD project was funded by the European Union under the H2020-MSCA program. The consortium, which is coordinated by Politecnico di Milano, includes the Universities in Burgos (Spain) and Dunkirk (France), LUT University (Finland), and the Universities of Sassari and Brescia, together with non-academic partners in Spain and Italy.

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