Highway Solarpanel Field

The Netherlands is one of the most densely populated countries in the world. The country consists mainly of water, farmland, infrastructure and built areas. Also being a country without substantial natural resources, it thrives on trade but also farming in any kind of way. Trying to meet the new European standards on sustainability, the country focusses on the use of windmills and solar panel fields. The latter more and more cover the otherwise very necessary farmland. The core solution of our design is to project solar panels above highways, thus leaving farmland free for farming and double the ground-usage of infrastructure. As a primary testcase we have projected the solution above the A6 in Almere as part of MVRDV’s Floriade World Expo. The secondary goal of the project is showing sustainability can be beautiful as well; the semi transparent panels that have been placed in an open and airy angle, provide for a mesmerizing cupola of light,- air and rain play. As a bonus the solar panel field creates a noise barrier of 18dB in relation to it’s surroundings, which is double that of a conventional highway noise reduction wall. This directly increases the quality and size of the buildable area next to the highway. The project was adopted by NUON/Vattenfall, one of the largest energy production companies in Europe. The execution is planned between 2020 and 2022. After completion it will have 22.000 solar panels producing 10MW of energy yearly. With its 114m free spanning structure it will be a fascinating piece of large scale innovation, making the world a better place.