A18 Catania–Syracuse or Autostrada A18 is a 77 km motorway on the Ionian coast of Sicily that links Messina to Catania. The motorway is linked to the A20 Messina-Palermo at its northern-end and to the A19 Palermo-Catania through the RA15 Catania's Ring Road at its southern-end. There is also a second stretch of A18, of 50 km, on the south part of the island, running from Syracuse to Rosolini, recently extended to Ispica/Pozzallo with ongoing works to extend to Modica.

There has been plenty of research on creating roads made of solar panels, but the A18 Catania- Syracuse solar-powered highway in Italy is the world's first to come to reality. Equipped with 80,000 photovoltaic panels to replace the usual asphalt surface, the 'A18' powers road signs, tunnel fans, lights and emergency telephones.

The PV equipment practically stretches on 2.8 km of road, having a width of 100 meters. The cells are put on three huge artificial tunnels, and the project cost around €60 million. The power generating figures are nevertheless impressive: 12 million kWh generated annually, saving 31,000 tons of oil and 10,000 tons of CO2, every year.

According to Wikipedia; greenoptimistic