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Solar panels between railway tracks? (www.euronews.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm all for putting solar panels all over the place, but won't these get dusty and oily and need loads of cleaning after trains pass over?

Also, costing €623,000 over three years sounds rather expensive for just 100m (although that roughly equates to 11KW).

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[–] Valmond 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (19 children)

Putting solar panels between rails is as stupid as solar roadways. There is nothing to be gained and just lots of hurdles to overcome to make it (almost) as good as a normal solar panel on a roof or on a stick or on a wall.

Tell me, why on earth would you put solar panels between rails?

Edit: lot of anger here, but no answers why the panels should go between the rails, shaken daily by heavy trains. You invested in it or what?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 days ago (5 children)

I like the idea. Free land use. I wonder if the rails can be used as electric conductors. A special train can deploy tons per day, and could clean them regularly in a highly automated way.

Unlike roadways, they don't carry any load.

[–] Valmond 1 points 6 days ago (4 children)

This just shows you like the idea but don't have any formal training in say constructing stuff.

Are you going to run 1000 volt through the rails? The rails who are bolted to the earth, like grounded? Did you think that one over :-) ?

I mean we all have thise fun ideas, and that's actually great, because some are good even if the overwhelming numbers are not. The thing is that all the easy ones has been taken.

About the train "deploying tons a day", where did you get that from? Also with hundred of thousands panels lining your train tracks you'll need to replace broken ones, will you stop regular trains to do that?

And god forbid one rattles loose and wrecks the underside of a passing train as it gets sucked up by the wind from the moving train lol.

It's just not a good idea.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I don't know about the practicality of rails as conductor, but it wouldn't have to be high voltage.

About the train “deploying tons a day”, where did you get that from?

article said special train could deploy 1000 panels per day.

[–] Valmond 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

The lower the voltage the higher the loss, there is a reason power lines are hundreds of thousands volts.

What about the rails being grounded?

So if the panels are square, like 1km per day? That's not much for an existing rail line, and when are you going to do it? There are trains rolling there all the time.

What do you think, is it still a good idea?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

about 42 panels per hour. If that includes wiring somehow, that is faster than other solar. Maybe their daily productivity estimate includes scooting out of the way of other trains and less than 24 hours operation.

[–] Valmond 1 points 5 days ago

I didn't knew the problem with ordinary solar was the installation time \s

How on earth do you "scoot out of the way" of other trains when you yourself is a train?

I feel you all are just shitting me lol 😂

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