Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

euronews.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 150 posts

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

#41

Post by prmoustache »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #25

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?

> 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?

I guess it is easier to control the deployment since they own the railroads.

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

#42

Post by mschuster91 »

ceejayoz wrote: post #38
Aurornis wrote: post #32

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 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.

> There's caternary on 99% of Swiss rail, every few dozen meters, that already transmits power.

Switzerland runs on 15 kV catenary voltage. Transformers suitable for that kind of voltage cost a lot of money.

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

#43

Post by 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.

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

#44

Post by Aurornis »

dvh wrote: post #31

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.

Or don’t put the panels near a railway at all. We have so much land and even empty rooftops that would be easier and safer to use first. Running panels along a railway means the electricity has to be carried all the way back to some point, meaning either giant cables to handle the current or specialized equipment and high voltage transmission lines. None of that was addressed by this pilot program that was 100 meters long.

You can do a pilot test of solar panels anywhere and call it a success, but the real test is scaling it up in an economically viable way compared to alternatives. None of that was tested.

Putting panels in a line is the worst arrangement. Just put them on roof tops or fields and keep it to places where they don’t have to be armored and reinforced.

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

#45

Post by happosai »

zdragnar wrote: post #40
Epa095 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

At least trains no longer drop literal shit between rails...

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

#46

Post by inglor_cz »

tryagainian wrote: post #19
LaurensBER wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine that the cost to install is fairly low since train tracks require regular monitoring and maintenance so it's fairly cheap to add the installation and maintenance on top of the existing schedule. The manufacturer claims that durability should not be an issue. Time will tell.

Placing a cover over the area between the tracks makes it much more difficult to inspect the ties (sleepers) and ballast.

Yes, worsened inspection is a non-trivial problem. Very high quality sleepers (I wouldn't expect any other kind in Switzerland) mitigate this, but copying such approach in other countries could spell trouble.

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

#47

Post by Aurornis »

ceejayoz wrote: post #38
Aurornis wrote: post #32

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 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.

> Thankfully, Switzerland has lots of meters of railway.

The linear meters of railway are nothing compared to the square meters of rooftops. Putting panels in a long row is the maximally worst arrangement you can come up with.

> There's caternary on 99% of Swiss rail, every few dozen meters, that already transmits power.

I guarantee this wasn’t oversized to accommodate power transmission duties, too.

It’s also high voltage line. The solar setup would need additional and expensive high voltage equipment to interface with the line and to work within the design parameters of a line that was designed to deliver to the train, not carry extra power.

You could put the panels anywhere else and connect them normally to the grid like every other installation.

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

#48

Post by syllablehq »

reader9274 wrote: post #29

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

And yet it did work, with positive results shown over a year, right? It seems that the reasons why this "could never work" like cracks, dust, and vibrations might have perfectly reasonable solutions. Solar panels have gotten so cheap that it might not be as important to install them in perfect conditions, and other factors like real estate, ease of maintenance, access to the grid come into play in interesting ways. I suppose long term results are yet to be seen, but it doesn't seem ridiculous to me.

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

#49

Post by JumpCrisscross »

hx8 wrote: post #37
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #28

Earlier 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.

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 t…

> It's solar, of course the unit economics are going to pencil out positive in the majority of climates and energy markets

This is far from an of course. There were idiots trying to do solar roads a few years ago. The math didn't pencil out.

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

#50

Post by ryanmcbride »

dvh wrote: post #31

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.

I'll never understand why people latch onto these kinds of solar "solutions" in search of problems. Like that solar roadways fiasco a decade or so ago.

Just normal-ass solar is already safe proven and effective. Why do we need to remix it when there are still so many easy wins to be achieved?

Post reply on HN