History of train solar container

Imagine mile-long trains with 120 or more battery cars, charging up where wind and solar power is cheap and making daily deliveries of over two gigawatt-hours of clean energy each—enough to power a small city, port, or datacenter for days. In March, a tiny tech firm in San Francisco drew a crowd to witness power moving 100 million times slower, at the very modest pace of a freight train bumping around a rail yard. And I mean literally at freight speed, because the aptly-named startup, SunTrain, convened us to watch a diesel. Solar powered trains use photovoltaic (PV) panels to convert sunlight into electricity. In December 2024, SunTrain announced its proposal for a Wireless Alternative Train Transport (WATT) project — a plan to transport energy from solar farms in southern Colorado to centers of use such as Denver and the Front Range, via batteries loaded onto rail cars. As the California High-Speed Rail Authority gears up for this ambitious feat, its solar-powered trains will not only offer a sustainable alternative but will also achieve impressive speeds.