A once-unused part of a highway in the state of Georgia is providing power for more than 100 homes, via 2,600 solar panels on a five acre site. It is a sustainable highway project developed by The Ray, at the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. Allie Kelly, the Ray’s executive director, hopes someday to see solar fields like this one lining highways across the US.

The lower 48 states have over 52,000 acres of empty roadside land at interstate exits suitable for solar energy development, the Ray says. Placing solar panels at these exits could generate up to 36 tera-watt hours (TWh) a year –  enough to power 12 million passenger EVs, and worth an estimated $4 billion per year.