Two pilot projects integrate PV into noise barriers, one along a railway line near Vilnius, and the other along the E5 national highway connecting the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius.
Lithuania-based solar panel manufacturer SoliTek and Stalcorp, a Lithuanian supplier of noise-reducing foam and sound-absorbing walls, are participating in two pilot projects integrating PV into noise barriers, one along a railway line near Vilnius and the other along the E5 national highway connecting the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius.
The Lithuanian railway operator LTG Infra, part of the Lithuanian Railways, installed a wall 70 m long and 4.5 m high. It will be equipped with 60 frameless, double-glazed transparent SoliTek Solid Bifacial 370W modules. The two-sided modules can withstand extreme loads, hail and wind and generate 13.2 MWh of electricity per year, according to Solitek.
“If the results meet expectations, such solar power plants could be installed in many sound-absorbing or reflective walls, especially in cases where they are newly built during the development of railway infrastructure,” Julius Sakalauskas, CEO of SoliTek, told me. pv magazine.
Elsewhere, the Lithuanian Road Administration, Via Lietuva, is planning a 20.7 kW project of similar size to be installed in September. It will deploy 56 SoliTek Solid Bifacial 370W solar panels. “Due to its good location and southern orientation, the project is expected to generate 15 MWh of electricity per year,” Sakalauskas said.
“The European route E85 will provide us with data for a broad portfolio, both for rail and for cars. Detailed observations – of solar radiation, noise, vibrations – will be carried out in both projects to assess the parameters and their changes.”
A retrofit test will also be carried out at a location where existing noise barriers are dismantled to be replaced by a solar panel solution.
These types of tests are also carried out in Germany Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE (Fraunhofer ISE) outdoor field test site. The interest is driven by expected regulatory changes for infrastructure-integrated PV and the potential market size outlined in the latest research from the European Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC).
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