Trains AND solar power. Awesome.
This will never work, and it's ridiculous: https://youtu.be/7vItnxhWRqw
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.
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. 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.
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.
> 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.
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.
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An ETH study says no.
https://lenews.ch/2026/07/04/new-nuclear-plants-a-difficult-...
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
[delayed]
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.
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> idea worth persuing
Remains to be seen, considering how much snake oil there is in the solar market (but to be fair, this makes more sense than solar roads). A news article summary of a press release isn't proof of much.
Being right about things you have no control over is a bit like being right about your favorite flavor of jelly.
Of course.
I have tried entrepreneurial stuff twice before, in my 20s, though without much success. Having ideas good enough to get investors interested is a sign that perhaps I should have another go at it.
Can you be wrong about your favorite flavor of jelly?
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?
I think these kinds of ideas capture easily impressionable, elected representatives whose technical knowledge is non existent.
> 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.
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.
Seems likely that safe access for maintenance makes this unappealing economically. Likely easier to have wider rail right of way and then put a panel farm on the side.
With the added benefit of being able to mount the tracks at an angle, and the added disadvantage of occupying area near the tracks that is occasionally used for maintenance equipment.
And getting approval to widen the right of way, where it’s even physically possible, and issues around flora suppression.
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.
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> Everywhere grid scale solar goes, expensive new transmission lines follow.
How is this different than any other power generation install?
Solar (and wind, I guess) is way more spread out? Other power generation happens at a point on a map by comparison.
So requires more transmission infrastructure. The difference is that we already have that built out over decades, and now we need a different network in a much shorter timescale.
No one should pretend that the energy transition is free. The final system we will arrive at can be ver
Better 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 require ongoing activity. Train ballast requires replacement every N years which is going to require ripping up all of those panels.
> 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.
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…
> 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.
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.
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.