immo!nvest – Die Plattform für Standorte und Immobilien

Tag: Schienen

  • Solar energy on rails: new concept

    Solar energy on rails: new concept

    Sun-Ways wants to transform railway tracks into solar power plants. The idea is to install solar modules between tracks in such a way that they can be easily removed again, for example for track repairs. The Federal Office of Transport has now given the green light for the first pilot project, according to the start-up from Ecublens, which was founded in 2023.

    Sun-Ways will now be able to test its systems on a 100-metre stretch of track near Buttes station from spring 2025. The 48 solar modules will be installed by Scheuchzer, a track builder and manufacturer of track construction systems based in Bussigny VD.

    The installation and connection to the grid will be carried out by Viteos, a provider of renewable energies based in Neuchâtel, and DG Rail, a specialist in railroad power supply. The system will be able to generate up to 16,000 kilowatt hours per year over an area of 100 square meters. The partners in the pilot project are bearing the costs of 585,000 Swiss francs.

    Thanks to a special development from Scheuchzer, the solar systems from Sun-Ways can be installed both manually and automatically on the track bed between the tracks and easily removed again. The Scheuchzer machine can now lay up to 1000 square meters of solar modules per day. In Switzerland alone, with its 5000 kilometers of track systems, Sun-Ways expects a potential of 1 terawatt hour of electricity per year, enough to supply 300,000 households.

    The town of Aigle VD has already approved another plant, which is to be built on private tracks over a length of 1500 kilometers. Sun-Ways is also already in talks with the French state railroads SNCF and with partners in Spain, Romania and South Korea about further pilot projects.

  • New development to reduce railway noise

    New development to reduce railway noise

    Researchers from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research ( Empa ), the University of Economics and Engineering of the Canton of Vaud and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne ( EPFL ) have jointly developed new rail pads. These components are mostly made of elastic plastic and are stuck between rails and concrete sleepers, as Empa explains in a press release . They are used to protect rails.

    However, existing rail pads have limitations. Especially if the protection of the rails is greatly increased, this leads to more noise pollution at the same time. The researchers now want to solve this challenge. After several tests in the laboratory, a part with more than 50 percent polyisobutylene (PIB) content, embedded in a shell made of a harder ethylene vinyl acetate (EVA) plastic, proved to be the most effective option. At the same time, it can reduce railway noise and protect the rails.

    In a next step, the new rail pads are to be tested on a railway line in Nottwil in March. “These rail pads are easy to make. We will need almost 400 units for the 100-metre stretch,” explains Bart van Damme from Empa’s Acoustics and Noise Reduction department. That is why a company is already on board that will take over the manufacture of the components that have already been patented.