The French railway operator SNCF has commenced six months of performance testing of a new prototype that generates energy from PV panels placed on non-operational railway tracks. SNCF possesses vast land reserves in France – more than 113,800 hectares. By 2030 it plans to install 1,000MWp (megawatt peak) of ground-based PV capacity on this land.
AREP, a subsidiary of SNCF, has been developing a container-based, portable solar power plant that can be placed on non-operational railway tracks and then relocated as needed. The aim of the project – known as Solveig – is to minimise the footprint of solar installations on the ground while enhancing the solar potential of unused rail lines.
The project’s prototype, which includes eight PV panels together with inverters, storage batteries and mounting equipment, can be shipped either by road or rail to site in standardised ISO containers. The mounting equipment, which includes a telescopic arm, is used to unload the panels from the container. These are then laid on the tracks and fixed in place. The installation does not require permanent foundations to be built or any construction work.
It’s kinda funny that they are using the tracks…they have a huge amount of land that is just empty right beside the tracks…just offload them from flat cars and accordion them as far as the right of way extends…then wire them into the catenary, or run more wiring if needed…pull up with 2km of flat cars and dump them next to the track…go back to the factory/ship from china for another 2km of flat cars and dump it on the other side of the track…if you can do 100m on either side…you’ve just built a 10MW solar farm…
How exactly do they expect to inspect or maintain the track? Never mind things like signalling balises. Or brake dust and the like making the panels dirty.
Solar panels in the four-foot cannot possibly work.
@Simon. Possibly the article translated the French technical term for the strip of land occupied by a railway line as ‘track’. What they meant was that they are placing modular solar arrays that occupy the same footprint as a standard shipping container on unused parts of the permanent way that are out of service. E.g. sidings or passing loops that are no longer used or areas where a line has been reduced from a 3 or 4 track line to a double or single track line. They have developed an adapted container flat bed wagon to be able to deploy these easily from a train on an operating line to an adjacent unused line or section of lifted trackbed.
@W, Simon,
I’ve posted another, more critical article on this topic, which has more details: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2025/solar-panels-between-tracks-on-an-active-railway-line-is-a-dreadful-idea-jonworth/.
@Long Branch Mike
I just re-read it again and I hadn’t noticed the video last time; it was hidden unless I allowed cookies… it does seem like the panels are attached to the actual track, but only where it is disused. The panels are physically attached on top of the rails so a train cannot pass over them. My French is not quite good enough but I think the gist is that they are reusing the track as foundations for the installation. I suppose it could work. If SNCF were doing the same thing as the Swiss test that Jon Worth is commenting on then it does seem like a bad idea, but I don’t think it’s the same project? I could be wrong.
The youtuber Eevblog did a video about this a few days ago.
TL;DR it’s abut as bad as any solar railways and solar roadways could ever be.
The only reasonable combination of solar panels and transport infrastructure is to use solar panels to also provide shade and protection from rain above bicycle+pedestrian paths.