The rail industry has been working hard to further improve its impressive green credentials. Companies have been using alternative fuels such as hydrogen and liquid natural gas, alongside this UK based company Riding Sunbeams is working towards harnessing the power of the sun for sustainable rail power.
Rail has been noted to be one of the cleanest, greenest modes of transport and is showing no signs of slowing down when it comes to reducing its CO2 and harmful gas emissions. Companies such as Alstom are taking centre stage with hydrogen powered trains, as well as companies such as Wabtec announcing battery-electric powered freight locomotives.
Alongside these alternative fuel types, a UK based company, Riding Sunbeams, is turning to the sky to harness the power of the sun as an alternative fuel for rail. Founded by climate charity ‘Possible’ and ‘Community Energy South’, the company is on a mission to provide Britain’s rail networks with a direct supply of renewable energy.
We speak to Leo Murray, director, Riding Sunbeams to find out more about the key benefits of solar powered rail and the future for the project.
Frankie Youd (FY): Could you provide me with some background on Riding Sunbeams?
Leo Murray (LM): Riding Sunbeams began in 2017 as an innovation project by climate charity ‘Possible’ and Lewes-based ‘Community Energy South’. It was formally constituted in 2018 as a business with a mission to find an unsubsidised route to market for community energy, and to rapidly decarbonise railways in a way that maximises social benefit.“Britain’s railways are our largest electricity consumer. ”
Britain’s railways are our largest electricity consumer. With demand spread across thousands of kilometres of track they need access to zero carbon energy sources to be able to fully transcend fossil fuels.
Solar subsidies have been scrapped, and much of the UK power grid is at capacity so cannot accept new connections from solar generators. This means that to secure the capital investment to build new solar PV in Britain, developers need direct access to financially secure, large-scale energy users who are capable of signing long term Power Purchase Agreements to buy all the energy generated by the solar farm over its lifetime.
In seeking to decarbonise, it is clear that every little helps, and, as far as I can tell solar energy is a very little. Perhaps they might reduce the energy consumption of stations, but there will need to be some enormous fields of solar panels to contribute meaningfully to traction energy as the article seems to imply.