Swiss startup Sun-ways is planning to build a 18 kW pilot PV system between the racks of a 100-m linear section of a railway line in the Swiss canton of Neuchâtel.
At least for right now it’s just a test on a 100-meter length of track, but this reeks of a startup trying to innovate its way out of NIMBYs not wanting to put solar panels where they actually belong without considering why nobody has put solar panels in the middle of a railroad track before (cough rocks, dust, wildlife, vibration, and vandalism cough).
PV Magazine is neat for reading about potential new innovations, but one thing I really dislike about it is that it basically just regurgitates what solar companies say about themselves in press releases in a way that’s completely uncritical. For instance:
Similarly, removal and installation tests will be carried out to demonstrate that the Sunways pilot installation is perfectly adapted to the constraints related to maintenance work and the operation of the line.
One more reason. The reason they tell people not to lay on the tracks under the train, the freaking cables and chains that could come loose and dangle under the cars and drag along the ground that would cut you in half the long way. Those loose parts would just destroy the solar panels.
Maybe they only put them on the “Off Road” Tracks of the Street Trains. They usually have a covered bottom (like Cars) to avoid debris flinging into its soft parts… but that will only solve one Issue of the many MANY there are.
(Lots of Ifs here)
Might be cause they make roof redos or fumigation even more expensive. I had a customer say they were paying 3k to get their panels removed so they could pay another 3k to fumigate the house. Almost doubled the price.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that we should require panels in new builds somehow but I don’t know what the best option is.
You drop heavy ass tarps on the roof and roll them to tent a house, I’m taking couple hundred pound tarps. The workers need to be able to walk on the roof to set them up, the tarps can and have damaged panels so companies in the area don’t fumigate with them on anymore.
I work closely with a fumigation company and that’s what they’ve told us.
Seems like they could use a boom lift and work around them if they wanted to. I’m sure there’s a way to cover the panels with plywood to where they wouldn’t get damaged. Much cheaper and easier than removing and replacing.
You would need to screw the plywood into the roof so it doesn’t shift around and damage stuff during the whole process, nobody is gonna wanna do that. Boom lifts are ocassionally used for extremely tall properties but they add to the price. You’re forgetting the biggest issue though, liability. My company stopped doing fumigations cause of the liability involved. Getting the plywood on the roof is gonna take a lot of effort and more than just a boom lift, you’re gonna need huge slabs of it to properly cover panels, I don’t know if you’ve seen them but they’re not small. They usually cover significant portions of the roof.
At that point it would just be cheaper to pay a company to remove them and reinstall vs all that other effort.
If there was a better way the companies would do it to make money. There just isn’t unless the owner is willing to shell out and many aren’t, even the rich ones and we work with A LOT of rich people. They own million dollar homes and have multiple homes all over the area.
Sounds like a scam. Houses round me had their roof tiles replaced recently and the guys just took the solar panels off and put them back on after no problem without inflating the price. Perhaps it varies on how the panels are installed, but most I have seen are just under the tiles and attached to the roof frame.
And the benefits far out weigh the slight extra cost of a roof retile every 20 or so years.
The cost of solar panels on a new build is extremely marginal for the long term benefits they provide to the owners of the house, the environment and the general electric grid. They should absolutely be a requirement.
Yeah your right, my only concern is them having a captive market which would allow them to jack up prices but right now there are lots of competing companies so it shouldn’t happen withing the next decade
At least for right now it’s just a test on a 100-meter length of track, but this reeks of a startup trying to innovate its way out of NIMBYs not wanting to put solar panels where they actually belong without considering why nobody has put solar panels in the middle of a railroad track before (cough rocks, dust, wildlife, vibration, and vandalism cough).
PV Magazine is neat for reading about potential new innovations, but one thing I really dislike about it is that it basically just regurgitates what solar companies say about themselves in press releases in a way that’s completely uncritical. For instance:
One more reason. The reason they tell people not to lay on the tracks under the train, the freaking cables and chains that could come loose and dangle under the cars and drag along the ground that would cut you in half the long way. Those loose parts would just destroy the solar panels.
Maybe they only put them on the “Off Road” Tracks of the Street Trains. They usually have a covered bottom (like Cars) to avoid debris flinging into its soft parts… but that will only solve one Issue of the many MANY there are. (Lots of Ifs here)
Solar panels need to be on every home and how new builds in many countries still don’t require them baffles me.
Might be cause they make roof redos or fumigation even more expensive. I had a customer say they were paying 3k to get their panels removed so they could pay another 3k to fumigate the house. Almost doubled the price.
Don’t get me wrong, I agree that we should require panels in new builds somehow but I don’t know what the best option is.
Why did they have to remove the panels in order to fumigate? If the company couldn’t work around them then they should have found a different company.
You drop heavy ass tarps on the roof and roll them to tent a house, I’m taking couple hundred pound tarps. The workers need to be able to walk on the roof to set them up, the tarps can and have damaged panels so companies in the area don’t fumigate with them on anymore.
I work closely with a fumigation company and that’s what they’ve told us.
Seems like they could use a boom lift and work around them if they wanted to. I’m sure there’s a way to cover the panels with plywood to where they wouldn’t get damaged. Much cheaper and easier than removing and replacing.
You would need to screw the plywood into the roof so it doesn’t shift around and damage stuff during the whole process, nobody is gonna wanna do that. Boom lifts are ocassionally used for extremely tall properties but they add to the price. You’re forgetting the biggest issue though, liability. My company stopped doing fumigations cause of the liability involved. Getting the plywood on the roof is gonna take a lot of effort and more than just a boom lift, you’re gonna need huge slabs of it to properly cover panels, I don’t know if you’ve seen them but they’re not small. They usually cover significant portions of the roof.
At that point it would just be cheaper to pay a company to remove them and reinstall vs all that other effort.
If there was a better way the companies would do it to make money. There just isn’t unless the owner is willing to shell out and many aren’t, even the rich ones and we work with A LOT of rich people. They own million dollar homes and have multiple homes all over the area.
Sounds like a scam. Houses round me had their roof tiles replaced recently and the guys just took the solar panels off and put them back on after no problem without inflating the price. Perhaps it varies on how the panels are installed, but most I have seen are just under the tiles and attached to the roof frame.
And the benefits far out weigh the slight extra cost of a roof retile every 20 or so years.
What sort of prices were they charging?
There and around $13000 I believe
Houses are expensive enough, no need to make it worse
The cost of solar panels on a new build is extremely marginal for the long term benefits they provide to the owners of the house, the environment and the general electric grid. They should absolutely be a requirement.
They paid back in around 5 years on my moms roof, and that was 11 years ago, and panels are waaay cheaper now than they were back then.
Yeah your right, my only concern is them having a captive market which would allow them to jack up prices but right now there are lots of competing companies so it shouldn’t happen withing the next decade