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.
Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
31–40 of 150 posts
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#32Putting 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.
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#33It 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…
> at least the train isn’t driving directly on the thing It’s just kicking up dust and dripping lubricant onto it. Maybe this makes sense. I’m deeply sceptical. Especially when you could just be putting vertical panels to the sides.
Initially, he planned to remove dust from the surface of the photovoltaic cells using a cylindrical brush mounted on the rear of a train. “However, we realised that each time a train passes, it creates an airflow that sweeps away all the dust,” he said.
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#34Better article with video: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/emissions-reduction/solar-energ...
That video is good - seeing the train-car dropping the panels into place makes it clear that you have some immediate labor savings on the initial deployment. Not sure if the post-installation labor was significant or could be automated away. Still not sold on the idea. For something with a 20+ year life span, the initial deployment effort seems kind of irrelevant and should be better located somewhere that does not r…
> seeing the train-car dropping the panels into place makes it clear that you have some immediate labor savings on the initial deployment.
Dropping panels in place is not the hard part. Getting all of that electricity back to a connection point is one of the many problems created by this idea.
Putting panels in a multiple kilometer long end-to-end row is very inefficient compared to rectangular layouts that can be clustered around connection points.
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#35Solar 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.
It does seem kind of silly to put the panels between the rails, more prone to damage there from stuff falling off the trains, derailments, etc. and not angled for optimal sun exposure though I guess it's easy open space.
Before I read the article I was thinking the electricity from the panels would power the trains but doesn't sound like the output is enough.
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#36[deleted]
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#37It 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…
> at least the train isn’t driving directly on the thing It’s just kicking up dust and dripping lubricant onto it. Maybe this makes sense. I’m deeply sceptical. Especially when you could just be putting vertical panels to the sides.
It's solar, of course the unit economics are going to pencil out positive in the majority of climates and energy markets. The real question is "why should we put them here instead of somewhere else."
I wonder if the benefits are legal/jurisdiction/political. The total amount of track they could install this on is huge, and it doesn't seem like something that will be disagreeable on the local level. It could just be the easiest place to put it to deal with property law and zoning etc.
Another political benefit is that it means work for a very large number of jurisdictions, as there are suitable tracks just about everywhere.
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#38Putting 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 lo…
> It took 100 meters to do this.
Thankfully, Switzerland has lots of meters of railway.
> Covering an entire railway with panels would require a different transmission setup to get the power back to somewhere useful.
There's caternary on 99% of Swiss rail, every few dozen meters, that already transmits power.
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#39Today 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
Cold: the metal boxes going
Hard: the tracks on which we roam
Panels when the dark's not coming
Feel the weight of what we tow
Re: Solar rail could become common in Europe after successful trial in Switzerland
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
> at least the train isn’t driving directly on the thing It’s just kicking up dust and dripping lubricant onto it. Maybe this makes sense. I’m deeply sceptical. Especially when you could just be putting vertical panels to the sides.
Initially, he planned to remove dust from the surface of the photovoltaic cells using a cylindrical brush mounted on the rear of a train. “However, we realised that each time a train passes, it creates an airflow that sweeps away all the dust,” he said. https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/emissions-reduction/solar-energ...
That seems pretty optimistic in the long run. Even a high power leaf blower won't get all the dust off of a dirty surface, especially if any sort of hydraulic oil, bearing grease or other viscous fluid mists onto the surface.