California may generate sufficient electrical energy to energy 270,000 properties by placing photo voltaic panels within the empty land subsequent to freeway interchanges in simply 3 Southern California counties, in keeping with a new report launched at present by Atmosphere California and The Ray.

There may be a variety of “lifeless” house between highways, which is at present not used for a lot of something. It’s not a usable house for wildlife, both, as a result of proximity of so many vehicles.

However what it does get is a variety of solar, particularly in Southern California, the place there are a variety of highways and a variety of solar.

The report highlights the advantages of utilizing this empty land beside highways for electrical energy technology and totals up the potential vitality accessible from all appropriate areas within the counties of Los Angeles, San Diego, and Ventura.

And there’s a lot of potential house mixed throughout these three counties. Each freeway interchange and each offramp will typically have some house for an set up like this. Listed here are some maps of potential websites examined by the report:

Put collectively, it’s a complete of just about a gigawatt of potential solar energy simply from empty land.

Higher but, these areas are sometimes close to transmission strains and are already owned by the state, which makes creating the house for giant photo voltaic tasks simpler than contracting or leasing with a number of property house owners for land, constructing transmission strains to virgin desert areas, and so forth.

Right here’s an instance of only one freeway interchange in San Diego subsequent to State Route 163:

This set up would have 1.86 MW of capability, sufficient to energy 180 properties. And that’s only one interchange, with many extra which might be ripe for these alternatives.

Whereas the evaluation coated simply three counties, these counties are moderately sprawling and populated with many individuals and highways, that means there are many freeway interchanges coated by the report’s space.

However different counties with loads of solar and loads of highways, like Orange, San Bernardino, and Santa Clara, weren’t coated. Nor have been the remainder of California’s 58 counties. So, if the state have been to search out alternatives in each county, there can be way more free vitality accessible.

There may be at present a invoice working its approach by means of California’s legislature, often known as SB49, launched by Senator Josh Becker, who represents San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. Atmosphere California has a web page the place Californians can contact their representatives and ask them to assist the invoice.

This isn’t only a no-brainer for California (as even Caltrans acknowledges) however for different states as nicely. In 2021, the Federal Freeway Administration prompt that states do that very factor, and the Biden administration considers it a “game-changer” for assembly net-zero objectives.

The Ray has a instrument for mapping related beside-highway photo voltaic alternatives throughout the nation. Some states have already began placing photo voltaic panels beside highways, with installations present in Georgia, Oregon, Maine, and others.

That is simply one of many areas by which Atmosphere California has advocated for photo voltaic panels. One other evaluation reveals that 5 million properties could possibly be powered by placing photo voltaic on the roofs of warehouses within the state (and absolutely the warehouses themselves as nicely), permitting us to show unproductive flat roofspace right into a helpful vitality technology alternative with out having to clear extra land for photo voltaic farms. Add in parking tons and superstores, and you may make a fairly large dent in emissions from electrical energy technology and not using a entire lot of effort.