Skip to main content

Danish SolarFuture builds solar facility by Öresund Bridge

Solar cell panels worth around €270,000 will produce energy for the Øresund Bridge that connects Denmark and Sweden. Danish companies SolarFuture and Solarpark DK have been awarded the contract to install 1,500m² solar panels near the toll station of the Øresund Bridge. The three-year agreement is with Øresundsbro Konsortiet - the Danish-Swedish company that owns and operates the Øresund Bridge. The panel will generate around 4% of the power to operate the bridge, including deck lighting and
January 10, 2018 Read time: 2 mins

Solar cell panels worth around €270,000 will produce energy for the Øresund Bridge that connects Denmark and Sweden.

Danish companies SolarFuture and Solarpark DK have been awarded the contract to install 1,500m² solar panels near the toll station of the Øresund Bridge.

The three-year agreement is with Øresundsbro Konsortiet - the Danish-Swedish company that owns and operates the Øresund Bridge.

The panel will generate around 4% of the power to operate the bridge, including deck lighting and building interior lighting at an estimated annual saving of close to €27,000. There will also be an estimated CO2 reduction of 85tonnes.

Eventually, solar power could supply around 10% of energy with solar power, said Bengt Hergart, property director at Øresundsbro Konsortiet.

Solar panels will be placed between the northern and southern side of the toll station and at least 3m from the traffic lane, behind the railing and light columns - close to both the motorway and the railway.

The Øresund, which opened in 2000, is a road-rail bridge-tunnel structure running across and under the Øresund strait from the Danish capital Copenhagen to Malmö in Sweden. The road and rail runs along an 8km cable-stayed bridge to an artificial island where it then enters a 4km-long tunnel.

The cable-stayed bridge features two 204m-high pylons supporting the 490m-long bridge span across the Flinte Channel. The motorway runs on the upper level while the railway runs underneath.

Most bridge structures including the piers and spans were built on land and towed into position on barges. Only the pylons were cast in situ. The Øresund is operated by both countries and was designed by Danish engineering firm COWI along with main architect George KS Rotne.

Related Content

  • Cowi wins Massey Tunnel design
    July 22, 2022
    Cowi has won a contract as owner's engineer for an eight-lane replacement immersed tunnel under the Fraser River near the Pacific coast city of Vancouver. Cowi said it will draw on its experience designing the original four-lane George Massey Tunnel in 1959 and whose removal the engineering firm will later oversee.
  • Almost gone: Canada’s old Port Mann Bridge deconstructed
    August 14, 2015
    Three years ago a welder’s cut halved Canada’s old Port Mann Bridge. David Arminas reports from the banks of the Fraser River. By the time this issue of World Highways reaches you, one of Canada’s iconic steel arch bridges will be a shadow of its former self. It’s been a three-year demolition job since the first cut across the deck of the old Port Mann Bridge just outside the city of Vancouver on Canada’s Pacific coast. A new 10-lane 2.2km Port Mann Bridge opened in 2012 (see box). It runs parallel to the o
  • Fehmarn Belt Tunnel opening set for mid-2029
    August 16, 2024
    Around 1,500 tonnes of reinforcement for casting the concrete tunnel elements are produced weekly for the 17.6km Fehmarn Belt Tunnel that will connect the Danish island of Lolland with the German island of Fehmarn.
  • Solar roads such as Colas’s Wattway could be the right way
    April 26, 2016
    Peter Harrop, chairman of independent research and consultancy IDTechEx, considers arguments in favour of solar roads Nowadays a major trend is the move to off-grid clean energy created by “energy harvesting” to produce electricity where it is needed. This is more controllable and increasingly at lower cost than grid power or diesel gensets, cleaner, and often less subject to interruption. It is taking new forms as revealed in the IDTechEx Research report, “High Power Energy Harvesting 2016-2026”.