☀️⚡️ Everyone in Switzerland agrees we need more solar. But often, there's disagreement about where to put the panels without impacting the landscapes too much.

🛤️ Looking back, this one is a no-brainer, why not lay them down between train rails: there's already a strong connection to the grid, and it's infrastructure that's already ‘built’.

🇨🇭 First segment of the tracks got inaugurated today in canton Neuchâtel.

https://www.rts.ch/info/regions/neuchatel/2025/article/la-premiere-centrale-solaire-sur-rails-a-ete-inauguree-dans-le-canton-de-neuchatel-28863275.html
Supplier: https://www.sun-ways.ch

#Solar #Trains #Railways

@fj it's cute but even if you did all of it, 3800 km of standard gauge at 1.4mish wide with an energy density of roughly 100 W/m² gives you about 500 MW of power total, i.e. 10% of current (tiny) Swiss solar capacity.

You could get the same capacity by converting 0.03%(!) of Swiss agricultural land to solar.

@ives I'm not really convinced by roof solar, it's cute and fun, but installing solar on farmland is much cheaper and you can get an added ecological benefit by rewilding the land quite significantly, seeding meadows beneath and around the panels

https://solarenergyuk.org/news/wildlife-found-thriving-on-solar-farms/ (it's from an industry group, so take with a pinch of salt, but look at how gorgeous those meadows are...)

@fj

@ives yeah, fair enough, sorry. i could only cover 80% of it in solar panels without a single person having to move. i had underestimated just how dense Belgium is - it is about 20% populated as you said.

I'm not keen on cutting down any forests so let's only cover 50% of Belgium in solar panels

that's 15,000km² which would be about 1,500GW - double the current total world capacity of solar

i really don't understand in what way you "don't have space" :)

@nemobis @bovine3dom @ives

It seems to me that livestock grazing is not incompatible with solar panels.