A green museum: the Guggenheim Bilbao installs 300 photovoltaic panels on the roof

Three hundred solar panels installed on the museum’s roof: this is how the Guggenheim Bilbao cuts energy costs, through an intervention, unveiled in late July, that will save about 5 percent in electricity consumption in the museum and cover the lighting needs of all the exhibition halls. The solar panels have been placed on the building’s two largest roofs so that they are not visible from the street and are integrated into its architecture. Preserving the architectural uniqueness of the building was a major challenge in the development of the project, and the design, in accordance with other elements such as the skylights, had the approval of architect Frank Gehry, who designed the museum, and the City of Bilbao.

This completes the solar panel project in the facilities of the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, which began in January of this year with the placement of 90 photovoltaic panels in the museum’s outdoor storage facility, providing an average of 30 percent of the facility’s total electricity needs, although on sunny days the panels cover all of the storage facility’s electrical needs.

The Guggenheim Bilbao believes strongly in the challenge of environmental sustainability, which occupies a central role in the Museum’s strategic plan, with a commitment to move toward climate neutrality by 2030. The photovoltaic installation on the building’s roofs is one of the actions included in the 2024-2025 environmental sustainability plan and is a project funded with European NextGenerationEU funds.

Moreover, the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao is the first museum internationally to measure its carbon footprint, including indirect emissions, and to make this measurement public. This is one of the main initiatives that the museum has been pursuing since 2019, progressively expanding its scope. From 2022, the full carbon footprint of all exhibitions, including their logistics and museography, will be calculated. In 2023, the Museum’s footprint was 2,561.84 tons of CO2, which represents a 12 percent reduction from the average annual measurement for 2019-2022 due to the various measures that have been taken by the institution.

In addition, as of June 1, 2024, 100% of the electricity supplied to the Museum is of sustainable origin, which will reduce the Museum’s carbon footprint by more than a third. The Museum has taken drastic action, reducing gas consumption by 35 percent and electricity consumption by 6 percent since it began implementing temperature and relative humidity control parameters more suited to outdoor conditions in 2022. Since that year, the museum has been internationally leading this change in preventive conservation standards for artworks, which has a major impact on the CO2 emissions of large museum institutions. In the last quarter of 2024, the Museum will make further progress in making the relative humidity parameters of the exhibition rooms more flexible.

But that’s not all: in fact, the Museum continues to research and experiment with more environmentally friendly materials for exhibition displays. This year, in the small-format exhibition Aprendiendo a través del arte, biodegradable paints and 100% recyclable wood fiber panels were used for the first time with positive results. During the two-year period, experimentation with different materials will continue with the goal of being able to reuse and/or recycle all the elements used in the exhibition sets. Likewise, the Museum will intensify the use of rental packaging instead of newly constructed boxes, as well as virtual supervision in the transfer and installation of works that travel between institutions, a technology implemented in 2020 that reduces staff travel.

Image: the solar panels on the roof of the Guggenheim Bilbao.

A green museum: the Guggenheim Bilbao installs 300 photovoltaic panels on the roof

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.