Swiss startup Sun-ways is planning to build a 18 kW pilot PV system between the racks of a 100-m linear section of a railway line in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel.
This doesn’t seem like it would work. Debris falling off the trains, dusty buildup, vibrations, rocks bouncing around the tracks; heck, even just wildlife crossing the tracks. So many things are gonna damage those panels if they’re just lying on the ground between tracks, and solar panels are extremely fragile.
I hope they have some sort of bullet proof glass or something over those panels. Probably going to need a special train to spray water over them to clean regularly, too.
I dunno about Swiss trains, but the tracks behind my house in America leave a thick black film on everything, and it’s very hard to clean by hand. I think they transport coal.
This doesn’t seem like it would work. Debris falling off the trains, dusty buildup, vibrations, rocks bouncing around the tracks; heck, even just wildlife crossing the tracks. So many things are gonna damage those panels if they’re just lying on the ground between tracks, and solar panels are extremely fragile.
I hope they have some sort of bullet proof glass or something over those panels. Probably going to need a special train to spray water over them to clean regularly, too.
I dunno about Swiss trains, but the tracks behind my house in America leave a thick black film on everything, and it’s very hard to clean by hand. I think they transport coal.
I feel like the vibration is going to induce microfractures in the photovoltaic crystals, no matter how well the panel is protected from debris.
And the piss and shit.
Our trains don’t generally dump those anymore.