Roofing Highways With Solar Panels Substantially Reduces Carbon Emissions and Traffic Losses
Hou Jiang, Ning Lu, Jun Qin, Ling Yao, Xu Lian, Jijiang He, Tang Liu, Chenghu Zhou
First published: 15 July 2024
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Abstract
Photovoltaic (PV) installations are a leading technology for generating green electricity and reducing carbon emissions. Roofing highways with solar panels offers a new opportunity for PV development, but its potential of global deployment and associated socio-economic impacts have not been investigated. Here, we combine solar PV output modeling with the global highway distribution and levelized cost of electricity to estimate the potential and economic feasibility of deploying highway PV systems worldwide. We also quantify its co-benefits of reducing CO2 equivalent emissions and traffic losses (road traffic deaths and socio-economic burdens). Our analysis reveals a potential for generating 17.58 PWh yr−1 of electricity, of which nearly 56% can be realized at a cost below US$100 MWh−1. Achieving the full highway PV potential could offset 28.78% (28.21%–29.1%) of the global total carbon emissions in 2018, prevent approximately 0.15 million road traffic deaths, and reduce US$0.43 ± 0.16 trillion socio-economic burdens per year. Highway PV projects could bring a net return of about US$14.42 ± 4.04 trillion over a 25-year lifetime. To exploit the full potential of highway PV, countries with various income levels must strengthen cooperation and balance the multiple socio-economic co-benefits.
Key Points
- We estimate the potential for roofing highways with solar panels worldwide and the associated co-benefits
- Global highway photovoltaics (PV) could generate 17.58 PWh yr−1 of electricity, 56% of which is attainable at a cost below $100 MWh−1
- Highway PV could offset 28.78% of current CO2 emissions, avoid 150,000 traffic deaths, and reduce the socio-economic burden by $0.43 trillion
Plain Language Summary
Global efforts are underway to diversify environmentally sustainable strategies for photovoltaic (PV) installations to enhance the accessibility of green electricity. Here, we propose an innovative strategy to roof highways with PV panels and evaluate their electricity generation potential and social-economic co-benefits. Our analysis reveals that globally deploying highway PV systems across existing highway networks has the potential to generate 17,578 TWh of electricity annually, offsetting nearly 28% of concurrent global carbon emissions. Additionally, the highway PV could potentially prevent 150,000 traffic deaths annually and bring profits amounting to $14.42 trillion over a 25-year lifetime. We emphasize that the highway PV may serve as a crucial nexus for promoting human, environmental, and economic sustainability. ...
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