ALDERSHOT, England — The first solar farm to directly power a rail line is scheduled to go on line today in Britain.
About 100 solar panels at the facility near Aldershot in Northeast England will directly power signals and lights on Network Rail’s Wessex line, the Guardian reports. The solar farm will generate 30 kilowatts, and is a demonstration site for a project that Network Rail hopes to spread across its system.
While solar panels are already used in some rail operations, including stations, this is the first time a solar array is bypassing the electric grid to directly power a rail system.
ita a grid connect system , the solar power is supplemented by the grid , taking power from the grid when needed, and returning it when no train power is required.
Anyone who realizes the tremendous current it takes to accelerate a train knows how absurd solar power would be. That’s why there is an electrical director to direct power to where the most trains are running!.
from a .solar installers perspective, that is a terrible installation. The building is shading some of the panels, as will the fence. Perhaps they had complaints about having them up higher.
Gerald Mcfarlane:
UK railway signals are permanently lit.
GERALD, GERALD, GERALD – I’m not that easily fooled. Yes signals take little power. I know that. Which is precisely why the power signals consume is entirely irrelevant. A railroad consumes all of the following: traction power, station and shop lighting, electronics, station and shop HVAC, crew positioning or commuting from home, etc. etc. etc. and that’s before the energy it takes to move the train. Or the energy it takes to build the railroad (and facilities) and for weekly maintenance. Solar power for a few signals is entirely irrelevant. Kind of like the energy I save by turning off a light in a vacant room, compared to the energy I use to fly to Atlanta.
As for Netherlands and Germany living off “green” energy for a day or for many days, I don’t believe it for half a millisecond and by the way both countries consume petrol.
As we both know, GERALD, energy storage (capacitors, batteries) store power and don’t produce power. And are also tremendously inefficient and consume needless resources to build this aparatus. There’s a difference between our battery – storage spice grinder and the batteries it would take to store energy for New York City.
Remember this also: there is a sunk investment into our current energy system. To abandon this systrem and replace it all with so-called “green” energy would consume more steel and concrete and energy for construction, and rare-earth minerals than we could possibly find —- all for a system that will be less efficient, not more efficient, than what we now have.
Quite aside from the fact I’ve worked in the electric industry in various capacities, we own a house and two cars and I fly a lot of airplanes. I know what energy I consume and where it comes from, and I know the total destruction of this earth that so-called “green” energy would cause. The “greenies” of this world know nothing about the ecology they purport to save. Our earth wouldn’t survive a week when these fools take over.
Is this the system that Sacramento should be using to show occupied track , set signals, and prevent wrecks?
At least it wasn’t like the “wreck” a few years ago on Portland Oregon’s MAX line, where one train bumped into
another, both trains carrying a total of maybe 50* people, mostly dark skinned, and 150* reported into the local
hospitals with life threatening injuries.
NOTE: * these numbers are only figurative, but can be researched on the local news papers files, on line.
Happy Hunting.
As Charles suggested the geography is incorrect. Aldershot is South West of London. The station is located on a branch from Pirbright Junction (just west of Woking) to Alton. The line is electrified at 750 volts DC third rail along with most of the former Southern Region.
As the article states the power is for (some) signals – with grid back up and lighting for stations and possibly work areas…..Network Rail trying to be “green”.
It’s quite obvious none of you are familiar with Germany and the Netherlands. Germany has already gone 1 full day being powered completely by green energy(that includes no nuclear power), and the Netherlands is not that far off from being 100% green all of the time, which also means powering their railroads.
As for the article, 30kw could easily power signals and lights on a stretch of railway, remember, signals are not constantly on, they only go on when a train is approaching or has passed, otherwise they’re off, and the lights probably only need to be on at night. As for the rain problem…you are aware of battery backup and large scale capacitors aren’t you?
30kw is 30,000 watts. 300 light bulbs? Particularly low wattage LED bulbs? Something’s wrong with the comments math.
BS on top of BS on top of BS. The article doesn’t say how far 30kW will go towward railroad operations and how much will come off the grid. Thirty kw will power 300 light bulbs and won’t move any trains. The trains will continue to be moved by buclear power off the grid or by some other means.
BTW something’s wrong with the article’s geography.
Charles & others, you are right on the button. Wind & solar contribute little unreliable energy. These days greenies talk about making the human footprint smaller. Yet these wind farms have a bigger footprint than a typical power plant (no matter the source, coal, gas or nuclear), and only put out a fraction of the energy. Even on a good day when the wind is blowing.
Now consider the Tier 4 locomotives, cleaner cars & trucks, and clean power plants (coal & gas), and our environment is many times cleaner that 50 years ago. If you want endless energy with no pollution & a smaller footprint, go nuclear. Its been running our naval vessels for decades without incident bouncing around on the open seas.
TIMOTHY Thanks for agreeing with me Timothy. Wind and solar have their place, such as solar panels on residential roofs. To suggest they’d be anything more than a niche is fairy dust. The “greenies” move to electric cars, greatly increasing the load on the grid, would turn a big problem into an unmitigated disaster.
The fact is the wind and solar require an unsustainable amount of real estate which for the most part (in America) would come at the cost of degrading farmland. (Crops are raised between the towers, of course, but some farmland is lost for each tower and the haul roads.) Also wind and solar themselves require resources such as concrete, steel, copper, aluminum, and rare earth minerals.
Drive Highway I-65 in northwestern Indiana and look at the gargantuan wind farms. Compared to the energy consumed in the area (such as the car you are driving and the 100,000 other daily cars on the freeway) it’s a lot of input for very little output. As we know, Indiana is the best case – plenty of wind, plenty of land, moderate population and industrial uses. Imagine the worst case. Try to power New York City with wind and solar. My God.
The “greenies” are steering us into the greatest ecological disaster imaginable. Wind and solar belong in the Middle Ages, which is exactly where we are headed.
Don’t plan your travel during a 3 day rain storm. What a waste of money. How long does it take for a solar panel to pay off it creation and research cost to make it?
Have to agree with Charles. 100 panels is a publicity stunt. BART has been putting up solar panels at its parking lots over the last years paid for in part on a state grant/program. Believe they cover most of the stations electrical use, great use of its parking lots and provide a great overhead/shade cover to commuters parked cars but not much beyond that. They are certainly not powering BART trains from my understanding. The rail line could probably get equivalent or more savings in energy use by just changing over the light bulbs to LED….
Believe that most of us would agree whether its diesel engine, or overhead wire or third rail it takes a lot of power move a train, even a passenger train. Where could you pull it off? maybe large solar farms in the deserts of the southwest combining it with pump storage facilities (think solar generation during the day driving trains and pumping water to a upstream reservoir, hydro power at night when you release the water for irrigation). maybe with the hydro dams of the pacific northwest