Solar on Top of Train, India!
The Solar Train Team in Sonoma, California is working towards creating an 80ft train powered 100% by solar, and travel at speeds up to 65 mph by 2022! Currently, India has implemented solar panels on their trains to power auxiliary needs such as fans, A/C, and lights. This solution alone, is estimated to save 5,547 gallons of diesel fuel each year, equivalent to $20,000 in fuel saving per train.
Another opportunity for solar to help decarbonize the railway systems is to replace diesel locomotives with ones using green hydrogen. This is where clean kilowatts derived from solar and wind power can extract the hydrogen out of water.
Trains are a great way to reduce the embodied carbon of a product, as they move payload in large quantities across long distances very efficiently. If the same amount of product was transported by trucks, the payload would have a much higher carbon footprint. It would require a greater work force to as many truck drivers are needed compared to just a handful of train engineers.
Link to article for further details.
