Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland

ben_w

Always nice when something that I suggest in a random comment only to get a dismissive reply, turns out to be an idea worth persuing all along.

mrmanner

Trains AND solar power. Awesome.

pepperoni_pizza

Today we sail On the Solar Rail For there's much we just don't know So farewell with a kiss Then it's fast for the mist Till we're sleeping in the cold below

Aboutplants

What are the economics of this? Cost to install vs other available options? Durability will certainly be an issue I’m sure. Genuinely curious and not because I think it’s a bad idea. I want solar on all underutilized areas, I just prefer low hanging fruit from a cost perspective at the current time.

tryagainian

Would you be better off just building an additional nuclear power plant. This trial tied the panels to the grid, but they want to connect it to railway substations or directly in to the trains power system for the traction motors. Making the power only available for trains. And never at night, as is typical with solar panels.

kuerbel

Better article with video: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/emissions-reduction/solar-energ...

bee_rider

It makes more sense than the road, because at least the train isn’t driving directly on the thing. I wonder if the power could be delivered directly to the train. Although the only savings really would be transmission costs, not sure how big of a deal that is…

ajsnigrutin

Solar sidewalks, solar roads, now solar rail? WHY?! Dave from eevblog did the math and it's bad Did we really fill up all the area on top of roofs, parkings lots, industrial areas, etc., and we're running out, and we have to put solar cells on railroads?

reader9274

This will never work, and it's ridiculous: https://youtu.be/7vItnxhWRqw

dvh

Solar cell is the only practically viable power source with no moving parts. Stop trying to attach it to moving things. Movements breaks things. Just put the panels by the rail, e.g. as vertical sound barriers in reasonable distance (to lower the pressure waves from train) from tracks. Or on a nearby field where it can be protected and inspected all at one place.

Aurornis

Putting solar panels in familiar places is always popular as an idea, but rarely better than putting them on the usual roofs or as rectangular arrays on the ground. > the railway was fitted with 48 specially-designed solar panels with a combined power of 18 kWp. 18 kW is less than what gets installed on a lot of houses. It took 100 meters to do this. The farther the panels get from the interconnect, the higher the losses along the line. It’s easy to set up 18kW of panels in one spot. Covering an entire railway with panels would require a different transmission setup to get the power back to somewhere useful. I really wish we could just forget all of these ideas to put solar panels in places that are highly trafficked and serving double duty. Just put them in unused space that isn’t used for anything else: Rooftops, empty fields, or over parking garages. I often get downvoted for saying this because a lot of people like these ideas of putting solar panels in space that they see, like sidewalks or roads or railways, but we have so much unused space that isn’t near foot traffic, road traffic, or railways that is so much cheaper and easier to use for solar. These projects usually turn into political grifts to get government funding because the ideas are not economically viable alternatives.

CrzyLngPwd

I'm in the south UK, live off grid, and have a bunch of solar panels, none of them are flat aside from the 640w of panels on my van, which generate almost nothing during the Winter. Panels on the sides ot trains might be a better solution.

jeffbee

I don't know why people fall for this stuff. It doesn't make any kind of sense. You put the panels in a rectangular array in any convenient place. That's what wires are for.

brudgers

I've been nerd-sniped into google fueled napkin math. 18kw/100 m = 180kw/km The most powerful Swiss electric locomotive [1] maxes out at 7900kw. That's 44km of track. The most common Swiss electric (4/4) typicaly maxes at 6100kw requiring up to 34km of track. Switzeraland has about 5000km of track and 180 is about 200, so a million kilowatts if all the track has solar panels. Assuming 3000kw per locomotive and 100% efficiency [2], that's 300 electrical locomotives running simultaneously. The Swiss fleet is about four times that. --- Of course I am no expert. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_used_by_Swiss_Fe... [2] and ignoring the 10 per year efficiency loss of the panels mentioned in the article

BretonForearm

Bad website. No photo, only a video, and that wants to start with an ad.

jmward01

This is a great example of the solar ecosystem finding new niches. Tracks are likely good because there is already constant maintenance and inspections on them as well as ready hookup to the grid or, as the article mentions, directly providing power for trains. The point here isn't that this is 'the most efficient way to use solar' it is that it works and provides benefit. It is like agrovoltaics. The solar production is lower than a dedicated solar installation, but the dual use of the land and potential secondary benefits make it worth while. It looks like this could even get to the point where solar could actually power the trains completely assuming this expanded a little beyond just the track surface which could be interesting for the design of trains.

tim333

This has some more photos of the solar panels and the laying of them https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/emissions-reduction/solar-energ...