The Panama Canal's 'Green Highway': Less Consumption And More Environmentally Friendly

(MENAFN- Newsroom Panama) For more than 30 years, the Panama Canal has been illuminating the waterway along which ships travel with renewable energy thanks to a set of“alignment” towers and buoys equipped with solar panels, leaving“electric light” behind. Electrician Cornelio West watches as his colleague climbs one of the remote alignment towers that guide the shipping line through the Canal, to perform the second annual maintenance on the solar panels that generate energy. At the most remote points along the 80-kilometer waterway, there are 137 of these enormous towers with two white panels and a light tube above that guides the boats by means of a series of colored lights.

The red light means that the“line” of the“road” is approaching and there is a possibility of colliding with another boat, the white light means that it is“well in its lane” and the green light warns that it is approaching the shore and could run aground. The other 450 buoys help navigation and indicate to the pilots the“safe” course of navigation in both directions, according to what maritime lighting specialists of the Panama Canal explained from one of these alignment towers, located on top of a hill on the banks of the waterway. “This sector alignment tower uses solar panels as renewable energy, since we do not have electricity in the area, so we have had to adopt that energy with the Canal”. Each tower and buoy is equipped with nine 250-watt solar panels and one 20-watt panel, respectively, along with batteries and LED lights (lower consumption), making the interoceanic route illuminated at night, although the number of instruments depends on the structure itself.

Thanks to this, the Panama Canal has“installed around 90 kilowatts in solar panels” that are produced by“taking advantage” of five hours of daily sunlight to charge the batteries and“supply the voltage needed for the night,” the canal electrician explained. “We installed nine 250-watt panels that generate 2,250 watts per hour. While the sun is shining, the panels are generating (energy). This means that“around 90 kilowatts of solar panels have been installed along the Panama Canal,” the canal expert said. The use of solar energy on this important interoceanic route began in the 1990s, still under the administration of the United States, and has undergone more detailed development in recent years, becoming the largest source of energy for maritime signaling within the channel.

This adaptation to a more environmentally friendly source has also meant significant energy savings in maritime signaling for the canal, which, according to estimates offered to EFE, could be up to $2,500 less per month and $30,000 per year.
“(Solar energy) represents a great saving for the company since it would generate an electricity cost of around 2,500 dollars a month and 30,000 dollars a year that we save with these facilities that we have here in the canal. As time goes by, we are innovating in other types of facilities,” he explains.
According to the same channel, this has led to a progressive reduction in emissions generated by thermoelectric plants, which are increasingly falling into disuse.

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