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Trains in Switzerland Are Now Running Over Solar Panels in a First-of-Its-Kind Test
(www.zmescience.com)
this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2026
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Mmmmm, not AS stupid as solar roadways, but them again, what is?
Having said that... How efficient can these panels be just sitting straight up like that? That'll already cut out some of the efficiency which isn't going to be very high to begin with with solar
I mean, the basic idea seems good, no heavy materials will drive daily on top of it, like with the solar roadways, but still... How much could you realistically get out of this?
It's not about "efficiency" in this form. It's scale. Efficiency prioritization is useful ontop of a single home, Scale prioritization is when you are laying down a million+ panels.
Once those are installed, they're pretty much permanent with minimum maintenance, and will keep providing power for decades.
Not disagreeing, genuinely curious and hoping you know more than I do. Haha
You say minimum maintenance, but it seems like this would require almost constant maintenance to me. Animals shitting on them, trains blowing dust, rocks, shards of metal onto them, scratching their surfaces and diminishing their use over time by blocking sunlight from constant debris and scratching. Would it not make more sense to measure the height of the lowest bridge/tunnel on the track's route, and put these on a platform at that height? At that point, they could be angled, or even potentially have those motors that track the sun, while keeping them safe from damage from flying pebbles and dirt, and providing shade for the train to run under? I doubt the shade thing matters that much, but assuming these are passengers trains (I'm a USian, so I've only ever heard of passenger trains in folklore and western movies), it could limit the amount of air conditioning the train needed to keep passengers cool, perhaps?