Challenge

In several places in Flanders, for stability reasons, the banks of a waterway are constructed of sheet piling with a concrete head beam and a sloped embankment plate towards the towpath. The Flemish Waterway (further DVW) needs to renovate this infrastructure in several places in the coming years to ensure the stability of the bank.  

In addition, DVW has at various locations in Flanders, necessary infrastructure to ensure navigation in Flanders. This infrastructure consumes 20 Gigawatt/hour of energy. By way of comparison, this can provide approximately 22 million households with 1 hour of electricity simultaneously. DVW aims to meet this consumption by producing its own power. 

DVW wishes to bring both challenges together and add an innovative and sustainable component to the renovation of the banks by integrating solar panels into the newly constructed embankment plates.  

The ultimate goal of this project is to set up, test and evaluate a prototype in real conditions at a location on the right bank upstream of the Hasselt lock. 

With such a solution, DVW hopes to contribute to the Flemish Government's climate targets.