Solar energy from railways shows first positive results in Switzerland

The Sun-Ways railway solar power station was inaugurated on April 24, 2025, in Buttes, canton Neuchâtel. Keystone / Jean-Christophe Bott

In Switzerland, the world’s first removable solar power plant installed along a railway is now in operation. Just over a year after the pilot project began, its founder reports positive results. This Swiss innovation is attracting interest in Italy, France, and Asia.

“We have achieved our objectives, both in terms of railway safety and electricity production,” Joseph Scuderi, founder of the start-up Sun-Ways, told Swissinfo. More than 11,000 trains have circulated over the solar panels, and the installation has proven to be “perfectly stable and safe during their passage,” he said.

In April 2025, Sun-Ways installed solar modules on a 100-metre stretch of railway in Buttes, a village in canton Neuchâtel in western Switzerland. The photovoltaic cells are placed between the rails, on the sleepers. The special feature is that they can be easily removed for maintenance of the railway infrastructure. This is the first installation of its kind in the world.

>> Solar panels between the rails: here’s how the innovative system launched in Switzerland works: 

Solar panels cleaned by passing trains

The electricity generated by the photovoltaic panels is fed into the local power grid. Despite a shutdown of about one month – due to snow and, above all, to planned works to integrate a technical component into the system – the railway solar plant produced more than 16,000 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity since May 20, 2025. This corresponds to the average annual consumption of three to four households.

According to Sun-Ways, Switzerland’s roughly 5,320 kilometres of railway network – excluding tunnels or poorly sunlit sections – could generate up to one billion kWh of solar energy per year. This corresponds to the consumption of 300,000 households or about 2% of the electricity used in Switzerland.

Scuderi says he also found a solution to the problem of cleaning the solar panels. Initially, he planned to remove dust from the surface of the photovoltaic cells using a cylindrical brush mounted on the rear of a train. “However, we realised that each time a train passes, it creates an airflow that sweeps away all the dust,” he said. On that section, trains reach a maximum speed of 90km/h.

Another positive development, he adds, concerns the ease of removing the panels. Scuderi explains that, thanks to dedicated tools, it is possible to detach from the tracks and disconnect from the power grid a module consisting of three solar panels, six metres long, in about ten minutes. “This aspect is crucial when sleepers need to be replaced or welding work has to be carried out on the rails,” he said.

>> We wrote about the Sun-Ways project when it was launched in 2025:

No conflict between solar panels and train operations

TransN, the public transport company of canton Neuchâtel that operates the Buttes section, confirms that the solar system between the rails has not interfered with daily railway operations. “There have been no conflicts with infrastructure, maintenance, or train traffic,” wrote TransN spokesperson Aline Odot in an email to Swissinfo.

The risk of glare for locomotive drivers – often cited as a possible downside of this technology – does not appear to be an issue. TransN says it has received no reports of this from its staff.

Swiss Federal Railways, which manages most of the country’s network, says it is monitoring the project’s developments without being a partner. It plans to install photovoltaic systems not between the rails, but on buildings and surfaces it owns, such as stations, noise barriers and maintenance centres.

Interest in railway solar power in France and Italy

Sun-Ways’ railway solar plant is supported by the Swiss Agency for Innovation Promotion and has attracted strong interest abroad from the outset.

In February, the French national railway company SNCF announced it had signed a technical cooperation agreement with the Swiss start-up. This gives it access to valuable data, experimental feedback, and the technological assessments developed by Sun-Ways, SNCF said in a statementExternal link. The aim is to study the impact of a removable solar plant between railway tracks on maintenance operations.

SNCF “is a key partner, because the potential in France is enormous, and it will give visibility to our work in Switzerland,” said Joseph Scuderi. SNCF is responsible for around 28,000 km of railway lines and is one of the largest industrial consumers of electricity in France. It plans to cover 20% of its energy consumption with photovoltaics by 2030.

The Swiss railway company Scheuchzer has developed a special machine to lay and remove solar panels between tracks. Keystone / Jean-Christophe Bott

Scuderi says he is also in contact with Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI), the public company that manages railway infrastructure in Italy. “The idea is to organise a pilot project by the end of the year,” he said, without giving further details.

The context is favourable, Scuderi argues, because RFI aims to feed large amounts of solar energy into the railway traction grid. To achieve this, it plans to build plants near the tracks. However, this involves lengthy and costly expropriation procedures, which could be avoided by installing panels directly between the rails, he said.

Pilot projects in South Korea and Indonesia

Other partnerships involve companies in South Korea and Indonesia. In September 2025, the Korea Railway Solar Power Generation Project received government approval to install solar panels near Osong station in Chungcheongbuk-do province. The pilot phase will last two years, with the possibility of expansion nationwide.

Mutitron Automa, an Indonesian solar engineering company, is also interested in the Swiss innovation. “The technology requires further field testing to assess its feasibility,” its director Dieter Napitupulu told Swissinfo. Last year, he attended the inauguration of the pilot project in Buttes.

The challenge of transporting electricity over long distances

Julien Pouget, associate professor at the University of Applied Sciences of Valais (HES-SO), who has studied the installation of solar panels along linear infrastructures such as railways, roads, and waterways, highlights the difficulty of storing and transporting the electricity produced.

“A specific electrical architecture is needed because, currently, for stretches longer than 500 metres, existing technology is not suitable,” he told the newspaper 24heuresExternal link. The main challenge is to raise the electricity to a high-voltage level so that it can be transported over long distances.

A possible solution is the subject of a scientific paper authored by Pouget and other HES-SO professors, as well as the founder of Sun-Ways, which will be presented in August in Paris at a meeting of the International Council on Large Electric Systems.

For his part, Joseph Scuderi hopes to shorten the duration of the pilot project in Buttes – set at three years by the Federal Office of Transport – and to obtain final approval quickly. “We have demonstrated that the solar plant between the rails is safe. The sooner we obtain final approval, the sooner our partners abroad will also be able to move forwards.”

If confirmed, this technology could transform thousands of kilometres of railways into new sources of energy.

Edited by Marc Leutenegger. Adapted from Italian. Sub-edited by Thomas Stephens