How many solar panels or wind turbines would it take to power an EMU?

That is, how, much wattage is needed to run one.

 

I suspect clearance is going to be the bigger issue…

 

Especially with roof mounted windmills, still they could always try clockwork engines, wind up the key at each station stop,

 

A 4VEP is about 750kw for a four car mainline unit, so that is an order of magnitude what you'd want.

Tom

 

i think you would be talking having the entire unit made from solar energy absorbing material , and even then, some back up power would be needed, what sort of wattage could such a 4 car unit create , if every panel was made of energy absorbing material ?

 

I was more specifically talking about energising a third rail.

 

You have to take into account starting inrush current so a considerably bigger power resource off grid is required over and above your steady state power consumption unless you have a battery/flywheel boost device embedded in your supply system.
Easy way and I suggest a greener way to provide a power source for a single 4 car emu is to buy say a class 47 which will supply you with a suitable power and voltage around the required 700V DC , do some mods to the load regulator and connect it up with a suitable switch panel (and DC is a lot simpler and easier than AC) to a third rail.
But thats not green power I hear some muttering. Well the 47 would not take any new energy to manufacture it (a point proponents of wind and solar often avoid talking about) and can run off sulphur free oil so I suspect if you did a life cycle carbon balance a 47 type power source would win hands down. Diesel fuel from waste plastic is not too far away either.

 

And you would need it anyway on dull days and at night.........

 

when you add in the need for multiple generation along the route of a line, i dont think any solar or renewable equiped power station would generate enough power to provide a reliable power source, prehaps more thought should go into reducing the amount of land tied power needed by having more on board generating potential, such as enhanced flywheel technology, so that the only time a unit draws power from a third rail is when accelorating, as in starting away then an on board generator provides the power and the draw on 3rd rail is reduced to a marginal amount, the power being generated by the unit using the momentum of the unit, axle hung generators, etc, flywheel technology, regenerative braking, so the unit its self becomes a generator .

 

This perpetual motion business is easy peasy.

All you have to do is mount a big wind turbine/generator on the front of each unit. Use the third rail current to start the unit then as soon as the fan starts to go round and generate the juice, swap to that. The faster it goes, the faster the turbine rotates and the more electricity it generates.

The problem would be trying to stop it.

Sorted

 

No problem - you stick the stations on the top of hills. Then the train scrubs off speed arriving and, when ready to go, you have a nice downhill start to get going and ramp the wind turbine up to speed ...

Tom

 

I reckon between us we've got this railway lark cracked

 

Exactly what happened whe they designed the deep level London tube. Where they have extended the platforms for eight car trains on the Central Line you can see the change in gradient

 

Which is how some of the tube lines are laid out, and of course, being in a tube, one train moving sucks/blows the trains behind or in front along as well, thereby powering more than one train at a time. At this rate you could sell spare electricity back into the grid!

I might have missed something there...

Steve B

 

Don't know about 25Kv stock but the locos that ran on the Woodhead line made good use of the gradient and regenerative breaking to reduce energy costs.
If you really want to go green you could always learn something from the cliff lift between Lynton and Lynmouth.

 

Turn parts of the Settle to Carlisle into a water balance funicular?

Ok, I'll go and sit quietly in the corner for a bit...

Steve B

 

thats easy, ducted air to start and control the turbine speed, direct the air from the turbines to the brakes, slows the turbine down, cooling air helps the braking by reducing fade, then again as the speed increases, air ducted to spin the turbine, maintains a steady speed.

 

Do I detect some wishful thinking here?

 

I blame the heat