California’s High-Speed Rail to Run on Solar Energy
Elon Musk unveiled his futuristic concept of the hyperloop in 2013 by lashing out at California’s high-speed rail project, deriding it as “a bullet train that is both one of the most expensive per mile and one of the slowest in the world.” However, the construction of the railway of the so-called Golden State continues, with at least one feature that the billionaire should like: it will run on solar energy.
Renewable Energy System
The California High-Speed Rail Authority is set to enter into discussions with potential suppliers of a $200 million system that will own and operate. It will include 223 hectares of solar panels that will generate 44 megawatts of electricity—enough for a city of 33,000 inhabitants—and batteries to store 62 megawatt hours of energy. The system must be robust enough to provide powerful electrical bursts that propel trains up to 220 miles per hour through the railroad’s 171-mile Central Valley segment, withstand intense heat, and keep passengers cool.
Margaret Cederoth, director of planning and sustainability of the railway authority, explained to Forbes that the works could begin in 2026 so that the trains can run in 2030, scheduled date for the inauguration of the first section of the line (the time of the connections with San Francisco and Los Angeles is not fixed due to financing problems).
” California is a fantastic place to do renewable energy. It has the best solar facility in the United States,” he said. “We already have some very well configured parcels in our rights-of-way portfolio that allow us to do renewable power generation at the scale necessary to supply the amount of electricity we need to fully offset our load.”
Cost and Benefits
The most ambitious and expensive infrastructure project in the country, with an estimated cost of more than $100 billion to ultimately connect Los Angeles and San Francisco in a 422-mile system, was initially envisioned as an environmentally friendly alternative to expanding highways or expanding airport capacity, both major sources of carbon emissions.
Brightline West, the high-speed train project that will connect Las Vegas with the suburbs of Los Angeles, will also be based on carbon-free electricity. Unlike the California plan, it will buy power from the operators of the large solar fields in the desert.
The construction of the electrical system supposes a high initial cost, but also a great saving in the coming years, according to the state authorities. It will be connected to the grid as a “behind the meter” system, which means that sometimes it will take power from the grid, but it will also return excess power.
Future of Renewable Energy
Since no major high-speed rail currently runs entirely on renewable energy, that may be true if the $12 billion Brightline West project opens on schedule in 2028. But the Californian system could surpass it in a couple of years using their own resources.
” No one has, but everyone is starting to think” about relying solely on renewables,” says Ryan Scott, director of high-speed systems at Network Rail Consulting, a British company that is helping California plan its electrical system.
California’s railroad is being built on land purchased by the state in its main agricultural heartland, on viaducts built over fields and former commercial properties between Merced and Bakersfield. It will traverse areas that would require significant and very costly upgrades to the existing electrical grid to meet the power needs of a bullet train.
Cederoth said, ” At times of peak voltage on the grid, we will be able to use some of the electricity from the batteries to feed it back into the grid, just like a power plant.”
Brightline West, which has applied for $3.75 billion in federal grants, wants its trains to run primarily on the median tracks of the I-15 freeway, and won’t have the same amount of land left over to build its solar fields.
“I am sure that this project will meet the expectations of people who are looking to do good on the ESG front, or just corporate citizenship in general, but also making good investments,” said Wes Edens, founder of Brightline West.
But while California is building an entirely new clean energy system to power its bullet train, the State has not yet sought ways to monetize it through carbon credits. That seems to be what Edens intends to do with Brightlight West, as Tesla did with “zero emission vehicles” for other automakers, earning him $7.7 billion in virtually free money since 2008.