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Honeycomb-shaped photovoltaic system for transport infrastructure

Basic principle

The most important component of the modular construction system is a regular hexagon as a horizontal carrier element. Complementary to that hexagonal carrier there are rectangular photovoltaic panels of two different sizes, one of them to be mounted with the shorter side parallel to an edge of the hexagon and the other one to be mounted with the longer side parallel to an edge of the hexagon. Pillars (not shown here) can be of different length depending on the required clearance below the photovoltaic system.

Each hexagon carries two panels in a way, shaping continuous rows of panels. This configuration has two significant advantages:

  1. supporting structures composed out of hexogonal elements are more stable than such composed out of rectangles as there are now continuous joints through the surface.

  2. Hexagons can be rotated in 60° steps without changing the position of the pillars, the panels on the hexagon can be mounted in two positions, differing by 90°. This means, that the orientation of the panels can be adjusted in 30° steps and the panels will never deviate from optimum orientation to the south by more than 15°:

This flexible panel arrangement facilitates universal application of the proposed modular photovoltaic system regardless to the orientation of the transport infrastructure to be covered and allows for mass production as well as for a routine construction procedure of the module carriers.

Concrete dimensions and feasible combinations

The proposed width between two parallel sides of the carrier elements is 2,64 m. This is too much for horizontal transport on a truck, but these hexagons can be accommodated vertically in a high-cube container or swap body. Exceeding the standard road vehicle width of 2,5 m is advantageous for application on carports, parking lots etc. with a common spacing of 2,5 m of passenger cars.
Depending on the orientation of the hexagons (longitudinal or lateral to the road resp. rail) and the number of parallel hexagons, transport infrastructure of various width can be covered (small circles in light blue indicate the position of pillars):

Because of the variety of the span between pillars it seems reasonable to develop at least two variants of the hexagonal carrier elements, a lighter and a more massive, stiffer one.

The proposed dimensions match not only to line-shaped transport infrastructure, but also the wider 16m-grid of big parking lots or a bus station with 7 m wide driveways and 3,5 m wide platforms:

The variant with wider span is also applicable for roundabouts:

Synergies with catenary, fences or noise barriers

The necessity of erecting a lot of pillars along a road or railway line can create synergies with the electrification of transport infrastructure with overhead power lines or the construction of noise barriers. The pillars can also be used for continuous fencing along the line, possibly a decisive factor for facilitating driverless mobility solutions like robotaxis or autonomous buses in rural environments.

Snow-permeable rain protection

Because of the inclined panels a photovoltaic system itself doesn't represent an effective rain cover: Water will drop down from the panels and in particular in case of wind from the north, many rain drops will pass between the panels. Closing the gaps between the panels completely or mounting a horizontal rain cover below the panels would cause problems in case of snowfall: Snow could not slide down from the panels, leading to reduced electricity yield and heavier load for the supporting structure.
Rain protection for pedestrians below the photovoltaic elements could by achieved through rain cover elements inclined oppositely to the inclination of the solar panels and small gutters. Thus, rain drops would always hit either a panel or a rain cover element:

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