In a world first, a Swiss company has developed a removable solar panel system that can be rolled out along rail tracks and, after a tricky regulatory period, is now set to launch a pilot project on an open train line in Neuchâtel.
A removable solar carpet between rails
Start-up Sun-Ways has worked with EPFL, the Swiss federal technology institute in Lausanne, to patent solar panels that can be laid between functioning railway tracks and allow trains to pass over them. Even better, the system can be installed by a specially-designed train developed by Swiss track maintenance company Scheuchzer that uses a piston mechanism to unravel a carpet of the one-metre-wide panels at a rate of up to 1,000 m2 of solar panels per day.
But the real game changer is the way the panels can be removed and re-laid, a problem that has until now been seen as a barrier to using solar panels in places where access is required to allow for essential maintenance work.
A 16,000kWh-a-year pilot
Concerns about the system have ranged from potential cracks in the panels caused by the passage of rail traffic, which could lead to fire risks or even reflection hazards for drivers. Following a period of caution, in which Sun-Ways prototyped anti-reflective surfaces and other technical references were improved, the Federal Office of Transport has finally given its approval for the pilot.
In the first instance, partnered by local electricity provider Viteos and electrical rail infrastructure company DG-Rail, Sun-Ways will install just 48 panels along 100m of the train line in Neuchatel for a three-year trial run starting in spring 2025, budgeted at CHF585,000 (€623,000).
Sun-Ways expects the 18kW solar plant near Buttes station to generate around 16,000kWh of solar power each year. That electricity will be fed into the power grid and used to power homes, rather than being ploughed back into the rail system, due to current complexities in rail operations.
“A million kilometres of railway lines” to play with
Eventually, the start-up’s innovation could produce one Terawatt-hour (TWh) of solar energy per year, supplying two per cent of Switzerland’s total energy needs from solar carpets laid all along Switzerland’s 5,317 kilometres of railway tracks (though not in the tunnels for obvious reasons).
In addition to the Neuchatel trial, a feasibility study into a Sun-Ways installation fifteen times as long on a private railway line in Aigle is underway. And the product’s potential is also being explored in projects as far afield as Australia, China, France, Romania, Spain, South Korea, Thailand, and the USA.
“There are over a million kilometres of railway lines in the world,” Sun-Ways co-founder Baptiste Danichert said speaking to broadcaster SWI Swissinfo in 2023. “We believe that 50 per cent of the world’s railways could be equipped with our system.”
