The roof of a two mile stretch of tunnel over Belgium's high speed rail line has been fitted out with 16,000 solar panels to provide power for trains running through Antwerp Central Station and the surrounding railway infrastructure. Solar solution provider Enfinity says that about 4,000 trains per year - or the equivalent of a full day's worth of Belgian rail traffic - will be able to run entirely on solar power generated by the installation.
Engineers began covering the 50,000 square meter (164,000 sq ft) surface area of the roof of Belgium's HSL4 high-speed rail tunnel with monocrystalline solar panels (rated at 245 Wp per panel) in the summer of last year. The panels have been installed using a special ballast tile structure which negates the need for rooftop perforations. Enfinity says that the installation has just started generating the estimated 3.3 GWh* of electricity per year - equivalent to the average annual electricity consumption of nearly 1,000 homes.
The municipalities of Brasschaat and Schoten, intermunicipal financing companies FINEA and IKA, and solar construction company Solar Power Systems joined Enfinity and Belgian rail operator Infrabel for the Solar Tunnel project, which is said to be the first time railway infrastructure has been used to generate green energy. The cost of the project was around US$20 million.
The solar energy will be used in Antwerp's North-South junction to meet the electricity needs of the signaling, lighting, heating of railway stations, and also by the trains using the Belgian rail network.
In related news, the UK's Network Rail recently announced that the new Blackfriars Station, that is to span the River Thames, will have half of its electricity needs met by solar panels installed on the roof.
*Chloé Van Driessche from Enfinity's Belgian headquarters has confirmed that the amount generated annually is 3.3 GWh, not 3.3 MWh as previously stated by the company's U.S. office.
The accepted average for one home\'s energy consumption is 8,900 kWh/year (data from US Energy Information Agency) The solar tunnel according to the Straits times News website (posted 2 days before this one) energy output is 3,300 MWh or 3,300,000 kWh. Therefore it would power aprox 400 homes, I suspect Enfinity has used \"favourable\" data to provide a 1,000 Wow number, and the Author of this article has made a copy/paste error missing some zeros, the internet is becomes Chinese whispers because of one sloppy Author, I\'ve seen a few websites quote this article already.
The average home\'s energy in belgium is only about 3500KWh/year, so the favourable data is actually real data they used. And the 3500 is already counted as a relatively high usage. A small user only uses about 600KWH according to statistics.
On the other side we do have a less intelligent system to distribute the cost of this installation.
Also check Lithium Titanaat - Lithium Iron Phosfate (LTO-LFP) batteries, they found a solution at the TUM in Münich.
1. Jim Fiske... Same Jim Fikse as in Fiske racing wheels? If so, Hi!
2. \'One Days\' worth of train travel? Is that really worth the investment of $20m USD? I think it will take a few decades past those solar cell\'s lifetime to repay that...?
@Christopher - it could be a typo on their site http://www.therecycletimes.com/2011/06/solar-tunnel-project-connects-paris-and-amsterdam-through-solar-powered-euro-trains/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20070013-54/high-speed-euro-train-system-gets-solar-power/ http://www.rail.co/2011/06/07/high-speed-rail-tunnel-in-belgium-gets-16000-solar-panels/ I could find more....
3.3MWh/year for a $20Mil solar project is a con, 3,300MWh/year is more reasonable, I found a suppler selling 245Wp panels for $404 they were near identical to the panels in the photos, and lets say we use $10mil for the solar panels and Belgium gets on average 4.3hrs of sun per day, we purchase 25,000 panels rated at 245Wp, for arguments sake the panels only output under half at 120W
25,000*120= 3,000,000 Wp 3,000,000*4.3 = 12,900,000 Wh/day 12,900,000*365.3(days)= 4712.37*10^6 Wh/year or 4,712 MWh/year
1 Megawatt = 1*10^6 Watts
................................................................................................... source for the supplier: http://www.alibaba.com/product-gs/441089543/245wp_solar_panel.html