SNCF Réseau manages nearly 28,000 km of rail line in France. That is a lot of cleared land available for solar that they are mostly not using at any given point in time. By my rough calculations,...
SNCF Réseau manages nearly 28,000 km of rail line in France. That is a lot of cleared land available for solar that they are mostly not using at any given point in time. By my rough calculations, that would be about 40 square kilometers assuming 1.435 m between rails. No idea how much of that would be usable for this project, but that would surely cost tens of millions of dollars just to acquire that much land?
Interesting, just yesterday I was speculating about regenerative brakes on locomotives to contribute to the power grid. I love this idea too! We have these rail lines all over the place, it just...
Interesting, just yesterday I was speculating about regenerative brakes on locomotives to contribute to the power grid. I love this idea too! We have these rail lines all over the place, it just makes sense to improve their efficiency.
I hope the solar panels aren't too tempting of a target for thieves and vandals. As long as there have been trains the public has had access to unattended stretches of track. Those tracks have always been pretty uninteresting, materially. But if they now contain expensive solar equipment, will that change the equation? I assume they'll only be installing these in populated areas, perhaps to reduce the risk of tampering.
You can probably lay solar panels on the ground just about anywhere but sure, why not? Maybe installation is easier?
SNCF Réseau manages nearly 28,000 km of rail line in France. That is a lot of cleared land available for solar that they are mostly not using at any given point in time. By my rough calculations, that would be about 40 square kilometers assuming 1.435 m between rails. No idea how much of that would be usable for this project, but that would surely cost tens of millions of dollars just to acquire that much land?
Interesting, just yesterday I was speculating about regenerative brakes on locomotives to contribute to the power grid. I love this idea too! We have these rail lines all over the place, it just makes sense to improve their efficiency.
I hope the solar panels aren't too tempting of a target for thieves and vandals. As long as there have been trains the public has had access to unattended stretches of track. Those tracks have always been pretty uninteresting, materially. But if they now contain expensive solar equipment, will that change the equation? I assume they'll only be installing these in populated areas, perhaps to reduce the risk of tampering.
Welcome to the Internet hug.. I got a "502 Bad Gateway" on the site.