The Swiss Federal Office of Transport has approved Sun-Ways’ solar power plant for rail trackbed. Below right: partner companies.
Switzerland’s Federal Office of Transport (FOT) has approved the country’s first portable solar power plant to be installed between the rails of a railroad. The developing company is Vaud-based Sun-Ways.
To prepare the application for approval of the pilot project, which will be located near the Buttes (Neuchâtel) railway station, Sun-Ways developed prototypes in 2023 for specific tests and measurements. Numerous expert appraisals were required to demonstrate that the system was perfectly compatible with the FOT’s exacting safety criteria, since the pilot installation will operate on a railroad line open to rail traffic.
As Switzerland considers the installation of solar power plants on the mountains of the Alps, Sun-Ways’ technology could provide an appropriate solution to meet the need to increase the production of electricity from solar sources. The technology exploits the unused space between the two rails of a railroad track to install solar power plants, without disrupting train traffic or track maintenance and inspection work.
Sun-Ways says that its technology has two features that make it unique in the world:
The panels can be installed either manually or mechanically, using a railway machine specially designed by Scheuchzer SA, railway maintenance specialist company. This machine can install up to 1,000 m2 of solar panels per day.
They are removable; all or part of a Sun-Ways solar power plant can be quickly removed for maintenance work, before being replaced so that it can operate again.
In Switzerland, the potential for solar production is 1 TWh per year (equivalent to the electricity consumption of 300,000 households), on the nation’s 5,000 km of tracks, potentially saving over 200,000 tons of CO2 per year. SunWays added that it is “offering a solution with no environmental or visual impact that could generate 30% of the electricity needs of the entire public transport sector in Switzerland, significantly increasing their energy independence”.
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Publish date : 2024-10-02 06:04:00
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