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.
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.
The manufacturer claims that durability should not be an issue. Time will tell.
And getting approval to widen the right of way, where it’s even physically possible, and issues around flora suppression.
How is this different than any other power generation install?
No one should pretend that the energy transition is free. The final system we will arrive at can be ver
> 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.
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.
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.
Switzerland runs on 15 kV catenary voltage. Transformers suitable for that kind of voltage cost a lot of money.
Panels on the sides ot trains might be a better solution.
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.
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.
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.
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 guess it is easier to control the deployment since they own the railroads.
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
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.
https://lenews.ch/2026/07/04/new-nuclear-plants-a-difficult-...
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.
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.