2 ms·
A lot of people doubted this could work. After all, railway tracks are a dusty, hot environment with tons of vibrations that could cause microcracks. I was in
by dbrgn 3mo ago
A lot of people doubted this could work. After all, railway tracks are a dusty, hot environment with tons of vibrations that could cause microcracks.
I was in the doubter team too, but if this really worked out, that's great news. Congrats to the project team! Will be interesting to see if this scales well.
- kansface 3mo agoThe panels probably need 5-8 years in that location to be energy positive. A year is great, but doesn’t prove much.
- pseudohadamard 3mo agoAnd if you simply install them in the empty space next to the tracks, where there's no vibration or other problems and you can angle them optimally for solar capture, you get the same benefits without having to custom manufacture panels that are extra-tough to deal with the fact that you've installed them in one of the worst possible places to put panels. They never mention what those armour-plated panels cost, what effect they have on track maintenance, and what their efficiency is due to suboptimal placing compared to next to the track at the right angle. Heck, put in bifacials and you can swap out existing noise barriers for power-generating ones. It's a case of "given enough thrust, pigs can indeed fly" rather than an actually useful idea.