Network Rail owns, operates and develops Britain’s railway infrastructure.

Network Rail is the largest non-regulated electricity consumer the in UK consuming over 1% of the UK electricity. Reducing long-term costs along with lowering carbon is a key target for the future of rail transport.

Consultation

We worked with a consortium of companies that undertook the development and research work to allow renewable energy to be directly connected to the UK’s rail traction systems.  The project was funded by Transport for London and Innovate UK. Riding Sunbeams lead the project and are now leading a consortium to develop ten multi-megawatt community-owned solar farms around the South East.

Detailed design

• A temporary ground mount solution was specified to give the flexibility for the system to be moved at a later date.  
• Due to buried cables, it was not possible to dig the ground, therefore, a tub and ballast system was used.
• Three different solar inverters were selected to test how they integrated into the unique electrical system. 
• Monitoring systems were used to report on the integration of the solar pv system into the rail network.

Installation and handover

Our commercial solar team installed the system quickly and efficiently.  

Technologies

Inverters: Solis, Fronius and Solar Edge

Panels: JA Solar

Mounting kit: Renusol