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

euronews.com

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

#71

Post by herbst »

mschuster91 wrote: post #42
ceejayoz wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

To be fair, swiss train tickets cost a lot of money too.

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

#72

Post by hx8 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #49
hx8 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1. That was 20 years ago. I wonder how it would pencil out now.

2. Yeah it was kind of dumb to put the panels into a high wear environment like a road.

3. What matters more is which projects pencil out the best. There are too many to choose from that have a positive ROI.

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

#73

Post by beAbU »

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.

Did you read the article?

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

#74

Post by jillesvangurp »

Aboutplants wrote: post #9

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.

This might be exactly what you are asking for: low cost and low hanging fruit.

On paper, this should be pretty cheap. Normally, you need some mounting infrastructure to put the panels on, land preparation, etc. In this case, the train track provides the supporting infrastructure. You can bring in the panels via train wagons. Installation should be pretty quick and straightforward. And for cleaning, you could just do that from a rail wagon as well. Not having to truck in anything seems like it should be a big bonus here.

Durability might actually be fine. Solar panels are pretty reliable. And it's not like the train is in direct contact with the panels. The vibrations might be a challenge but presumably that would have shown up in the trials. It's something you could engineer solutions for. And so what if a small amount of panels fail?

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

#75

Post by 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.

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

#76

Post by jmward01 »

Aurornis wrote: post #53
syllablehq wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> And yet it did work, You can put panels on anything and generate power for a couple years. This system was only 18kW. That’s less than what we put on some residential houses. They didn’t address any of the hard parts like a transmission system capable of scaling up along a linear row of panels extending kilometers long. > Solar panels have gotten so cheap that it might not be as important to install them in perfect…

A first version is always going to be low in scale and problems will of course be found. The question isn't 'are there problems', of course there are, the question is 'are the benefits here worth more than the problems'. If you already have the land, a maintenance operation, a user of energy, etc etc then integrating solar into that system has a lot of strong benefits that can make the problems manageable. Start looking for the upside here and you may actually find the cost benefit equation balances out, especially if this scales out.

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

#77

Post by comrade1234 »

CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #63
CrzyLngPwd wrote: post #43

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.

WTF is the downvote for?

You didn't promote nuclear power.

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

#79

Post by ryanmcbride »

acdha wrote: post #58
ryanmcbride wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yeah, I can understand putting solar on things when it lets them become standalone off-the-grid setups but for something like railroad track it’s just not that much space and the costs are so much higher. Except on the tightest urban lines, just putting rows of normal panels next to the tracks should be significantly more space with much easier engineering.

Exactly. For example, I think the lifted solar panels that have been popping up over parking lots are a perfect win-win. Cars get shade, power gets generated, it's out of the way of most day-to-day threats, and if they have to do repairs, it's just blocking off part of a parking lot instead of a major thoroughfare.

If there's a single downside I'm not sure what it is.

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

#80

Post by ryanmcbride »

dukeyukey wrote: post #65
ryanmcbride wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

People hate the idea of solar in currently-unused space. Even if that space is bare desert. So you can get a big PR boost if you propose "solar, but on a thing" (roadways, water, and now trains).

Which is just odd to me because why are we holding one of the cleanest means of generating electricity to a higher standard than like, coal and oil? Why does solar have to have 0 footprint when everything else gets as much of a footprint as it wants? (I know the answer is profit)
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