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Clean Power solar powered high-speed train tunnel europe

Published on June 6th, 2011 | by Zachary Shahan

17

2 Miles of Solar Panels Now Cover High-Speed Rail Tunnel on Amsterdam-Paris Line {VIDEO}

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June 6th, 2011 by Zachary Shahan 


I can’t pass up these high-speed-rail-solar-power combos — they are just too cool.

A tunnel in Belgium built to protect high-speed trains from falling trees is now covered in 16,000 solar panels (yes, you may remember Tina covering this project a bit as it got underway last October).

The two-mile tunnel prevents the need to cut down any of the trees in a nearby ancient forest and will now also be able to provide power to the Antwerp train station and the Belgian train network.

The company that installed the solar panel is Belgian renewable energy company Enfinity.

“For train operators, it is the perfect way to cut their carbon footprints because you can use spaces that have no other economic value and the projects can be delivered within a year because they don’t attract the protests that wind power does,” said Bart Van Renterghem, the UK head of Enfinity.

As the video above shows (somewhat), this project was massive. Hopefully we’ll see more and more projects like this — projects utilizing unused space to create distributed power plants

For more on this project or related projects in the UK, check out the Guardian’s piece on this: High-speed Euro train gets green boost from two miles of solar panels.

For a similar story about a project connecting high-speed rail and solar energy in China, check out: Huge 6.7MW Solar Station Meets High-Speed Rail in Shanghai, China. That project entailed 20,000 solar panels on top of the Hongqiao Train Station.

More high-speed rail stories on CleanTechnica:

  1. “Mad Men” Make it Clear Why High-Speed Rail is a Winner [VIDEO]
  2. Putin Says Russia Will Have High-Speed Rail by 2018 World Cup
  3. High-Speed Rail Opposition and Support
  4. High-Speed Rail in China and California [VIDEOS]

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About the Author

spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as the director/chief editor. Otherwise, he's probably enthusiastically fulfilling his duties as the director/editor of Solar Love, EV Obsession, Planetsave, or Bikocity. Zach is recognized globally as a solar energy, electric car, and wind energy expert. If you would like him to speak at a related conference or event, connect with him via social media. You can connect with Zach on any popular social networking site you like. Links to all of his main social media profiles are on ZacharyShahan.com.


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  • http://www.stichtingmilieunet.nl/andersbekekenblog Milieunet

    This tunnel isn’t built to protect the train from falling trees, but to protect people living close to the tunnel from all noise.

    • Anonymous

      Hmm, r u sure of that?

      The info I originally read was about the trees/ancient forest.

    • Jeremy R

      If it was built to stop noise they might have covered the wrong thing since the highway makes noise all the time based on the traffic in the video.

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  • Rif Wiki

    The article from Guardian is very light on the technical details. Searching around I found this:

    The installation is 3.4 km long, 16000 PV panels, 245Wp per panel. The tunnel roof is a total of 50000 m2 (*1). Total investment € 14.5 million. Expected to deliver 3300MWh per year.

    News release in Dutch (French version not available):
    http://www.enfinity.be/NL/nieuws/werken_van_start_aan_de_zonnestroominstallatie_op_tunnel_hsl4.html

    (*1) The roof size appear bigger than what can be covered with 16000 panels (of 245Wp), so I am not sure every m2 of roof is covered. Rows of panels likely spaced apart due to 35 degree optimal angle towards the sun.

  • http://www.bajona.com Science & Technology

    In a Spanish media I have read that the infraestructure has been renamed as “The Tunnel of Sun” or “Sun Tunnel”. Is it true? Thanks!

    • Anonymous

      Haven’t read that, but that sounds cool! :D

  • thatguy

    Love it, except it seems to be a little odd that they would install this to protect against trees, if the tree are close enough to fall on the train then they are close enough to shade the panels> iam sure they did a shade analysis but it is hard to beiev most of the panel wont be remdered useless for a larg portion of the day, does any know if they have a public monitoring site?

    • Anonymous

      Newtech involves installing micro-inverters on each panel.  That means that if a panel is shaded it does not pull down the performance of other panels. That shaded panel just contributes less power to the overall system than it would were it receiving full sun.

      Shade is not the problem it used to be for solar.

      • thatguy

        I agree that micro inverter would greaterly reduce this issue, i guess it is the cynic in me to always look at the bad and not the good. I realy hope they have use the solar vu or something simular so the information on the array can be shared.

        • Anonymous

          Kick your game up a notch.  Cynicism is, like, level three of brightness.

          Asking a good question along the lines of “Is this a problem and is there a solution?” is 3.5.

          Purposing a solution is 5.0.

          ;o)

    • Anonymous

      aside from what Bob said, it doesn’t look (from the video) that they are getting shade — perhaps the concern with the trees was related to big, unlikely (but possible) storms or something.

      • Anonymous

        They’re protecting against blow-over, blow-on from the trees.  No shade issue except for very early/late in the day when panels aren’t getting much solar input due to the angle of the sun.

        In storms large limbs can travel quite some distance and running over one at speed could cause someone to spill tea into their saucer or something else bad….

        • Susan Kraemer

          Plus it is more than likely that these old trees are only in one region that the train passes through, and not lining the entire route! Great idea, love how it bypasses the inevitable NIMBYism

  • Anonymous

    I’m assuming that they can pump any power produced right into the rails.  Zero transmission costs.  (Well, a few feet of wire.)

    Wonder what the $/kWh number is?  16,000 panels would earn you a price break….

    • Anonymous

      yeah, nice to have the panels RIGHT next to where you need them. & wonder about the second thing as well :D

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