Oregon's Solar Highway

This is an artist’s rendition of what the Baldock site may look like when finished.

Oregon’s state transportation system — signals, illumination, buildings, ramp metering and other uses — consume more than 47 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity annually. The 2007 Oregon Legislature instituted policies for the state of Oregon to arrest its growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2010. One intriguing opportunity for ODOT to generate the necessary green power is through the creation of an "Oregon Solar Highway" — installing photovoltaic panels on ODOT owned land, including highway right-of-ways

Project Goals

ODOT’s goal is to partner with private parties to finance, build, operate and maintain solar energy sites along highways to generate power to offset 100% of its electricity use. To help achieve this goal, Alsea Geospatial, Inc. (AGI) was directed to conduct a statewide GIS analysis to identify suitable sites and the potential power generation capacity of each site.

Results

A total of 810 potential sites were identified by Alsea Geospatial, Inc. After review by ODOT it is estimated that photovoltaic installation on just 1 in 16 potential sites would generate 9 times ODOT’s statewide requirement.