Slovenia Builds Solar Power Plant On the Highway

[jpak]

http://www.javno.com/en/economy/clanak.php?id=43916

Putting solar collectors on noise isolating fences next to highways in Europe is nothing new and now Slovenia has one such first project.

As Ljubljana newspaper Delo writes in the business supplement on Monday, the noise isolating fence that will be built on the fast road next to the border crossing Vrtojba, 640 metres long and two and a half metres high, will have solar cells, and the power of the solar power plant, plugged into an electric network, will be 80 kw. With synergy effects of joint planning of the noise isolation and production of electricity, the overall building costs, amounting to about a million euros, will be reduced almost 20 percent. The project and the financial construction are almost finished and they have yet to be approved by the government.

According to the plans of the project, the solar collector in the sound wall next to the road will produce 108 megawatt-hours of electricity a year. The investment would be returned within 12 to 14 years, halfway through the lifetime of such an energy facility.

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