Highway PV capacity potential: A GIS-Driven approach for assessment and prioritization

The increasing electricity demand, driven by electric mobility, has opened up opportunities to use highway areas for photovoltaic systems. Due to the vastness of this infrastructure, identifying suitable areas and estimating the production potential cannot be done manually. In response to this need, this paper presents a methodology for automatically assessing the photovoltaic potential of areas near highways using GIS data. The assessment considers different installation options, taking into account the morphology of the area and the costs of installation and maintenance. Tested on about 3000km of Italian highways, the analysis shows that 85% of the available areas could be used, giving an estimated total capacity of 926MWp and a production of 830GWh per year.