The Guggenheim Museum Bilbao has presented the installation of 300 solar panels on its rooftops, which will allow for savings of around 5% of the Museum’s total electricity consumption and will cover all the exhibition galleries’ lighting needs.
The solar panels were installed on the two largest rooftops such that they are invisible from the street and are integrated into the architecture. Preserving the building’s architectural uniqueness was a major challenge in the implementation this project, and all details—from the design of the installation to the harmonization with other features, such as the skylights—were approved by architect Frank Gehry and the City of Bilbao.
This thus completes the solar panel project of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which started in January this year with the installation of 90 photovoltaic panels on the Museum’s external storage facility which are currently supplying an average of 30% of this building’s total electrical demand, although on sunny days the panels cover all the warehouse’s electrical needs.
The photovoltaic installation on the Bilbao building’s rooftops is one of the actions contained in the 2024–25 environmental sustainability plan, which includes the commitment to work towards carbon neutrality by 2030.
