More clean energy on the highway

Posted on July 26, 2009
Filed Under Uncategorized |

oregon-solar As a follow up to yesterday’s post about road side clean energy projects, the Apollo Alliance points to a few specific projects that have popped up in the last year or so.

In Massachusetts officials have proposed building a turbine at a rest area alongside the highway. It looks like it will be a 1.5 MW unit, which isn’t huge but I think these high visibility locations are a lot more about getting examples of clean energy in places where the public can see them every day, and get used to the idea that clean energy is part of our daily lives.

“It will be something that motorists will be able to see and see that the state government is moving forward to put renewable energy into the mainstream,” said Ian Bowles, secretary of the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, which has been working with the Turnpike Authority and others on the project.

Meanwhile, Oregon officials have begun installing solar panels to power the lighting that illuminates busy interchanges. As they look at expanding the program there, they are facing a stumbling block that is not unique to Oregon and will need to be taken care of by legislatures in other states as well:

Some hurdles remain, however. Public Utility Commission rules prohibit solar panel owners from selling more power to the grid than they consume on-site in a year. That would keep ODOT from using solar in sunny areas to power lights in shady stretches of highway.

What we really need is exactly the opposite: public policy that encourages individuals, businesses and local governments to produce more clean energy, not prohibit it.

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