• Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    14 hours ago

    For the life of me I don’t understand why people are putting them anywhere before every rooftop is covered with them. Roofs are dead space and unlikely to have debris issues (at least compared to a railway).

      • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        Every parking lot needs approval of the location, its probably a a pain in the ass, and would disrupt parking while being built which impacts sales (or will be perceived to anyway). If this worked, you only need to deal with a small group of people for a very large space.

    • warm@kbin.earth
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      13 hours ago

      It’s companies trying to make a quick buck. They tried this with roads too.

      Obviously every home should have them first and all newly built homes should be built with solar efficiency in mind.

    • DrunkenPirate@feddit.org
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      13 hours ago

      Deployment on rails is dirty cheap. Can be highly automated and you have highvolt power line just a few meters away.

      If you put solar upon your roof, 2/3 of the costs are labor costs. The material bill encompasses electrics, mounting system, cables, and pv panels that can get reduced on railways as well.

      • Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        13 hours ago

        Cheap if you only count the cost of plopping them down and walking away, the train could kick up enough dust and debris that efficiency is impacted significantly more than installing them on a roof would have been, necessitating installing new ones sooner.

        • DrunkenPirate@feddit.org
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          13 hours ago

          It’s all theory. That’s why I think it’s worth a try and learn the facts.

          Edit: A rough estimation with averages: 10 kWp gives 11kwh a year in Swiss, 1kwp panel costs 500€, 1kwh energy costs 0,28 EUR in Swiss. Panel material costs for 10 kWp is 5,000€ and earns you 3,080€ (11,000*0,28€) yearly. This shows the value of the idea.

        • blarghly@lemmy.world
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          11 hours ago

          What if the train runs a street sweeper brush behind it to clean them off every time?