Thursday 9 June 2011

Belgium trains to run one day a year on solar


Spotted in The Guardian was this story about a Belgium rail tunnel being fitted with 16,000 solar panels.

The tunnel's been built to protect a high speed line from falling tree debris, and avoid having to cut the protected trees down.

The resulting 'tunnel' made an ideal platform on which to mount the solar panels.

Energy produced from the £7.3m installation will be enough they reckon to power all of Belgium's trains for one day a year, which is a slightly less impressive statistic, but nonetheless, a start.

The panels will also help power nearby Antwerp Station

You can read the Guardian's full article here - which also includes a video fly-over of the tunnel project.

It's always easy to knock any renewable project of this scale and cost when the resulting output seems so small by comparison, however, let's be honest here - an electrically driven high-speed locomotive doesn't run on a couple of triple 'A' batteries does it?

photo credit: metro centric

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