RIDING SUNBEAMS: FIRST LIGHT

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Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
Innovate UK

£1,747,570

March 1, 2019

Nov. 30, 2019

Riding Sunbeams is a world first initiative to bring together Britain's favourite energy source - solar - with our biggest electricity consumer - the railway network.

The cost of solar power has fallen dramatically in recent years, and solar is now cheaper than fossil energy in most markets around the world. Meanwhile UK railways already use around 1% of all our electricity, and demand for traction power on our rail networks is rising. Electrified railways and solar power are two of the key technologies for tackling climate change by moving Britain away from reliance on fossil fuels, but they also share another important characteristic: their intrinsically distributed nature.

While Britain's ageing power grids are struggling to cope with connecting new renewable generating capacity, the UK's thousands of miles of electrified railway lines are in effect operated as a parallel, semi-independent 'shadow grid', with high energy demand distributed throughout: each traction substation on the DC network South of London has the annual power demand of a small factory. Riding Sunbeams has recognised this 'shadow grid' as potentially offering an entirely new route to market for decentralised energy generation.

The modular nature of solar generation and the diffuse nature of the energy resource - sunshine - means it can be deployed almost anywhere, from small rooftop arrays to solar farms a mile wide. This feature of solar PV also makes it an ideal candidate for installation on rail corridors and south facing embankments, turning otherwise unproductive land that cannot be used for any other purpose into a revenue generating, carbon-busting productive asset. Network Rail is one of the UK's biggest landowners.

Although some rail stations and trains have begun to install solar PV in Britain and elsewhere, nobody anywhere in the world has yet connected solar generation directly to rail traction networks to power trains. Our Riding Sunbeams: First Light demonstrator project will develop a solution to this challenge, helping us to realise our vision of a 21st century railway, with community and commuter-owned solar traction farms located alongside electrified routes, powering Britain's train journeys with cheap, clean and unsubsidised renewable energy.