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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations

Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success

ABSTRACT: Photovoltaics (PV) have been successfully powering tens of thousands of critical stand-alone railroad power

installations since the early 1970s—across the roughest terrains and in the harshest environments—helping power

critical train movement communication systems, signaling infrastructures and wayside applications with a 24/7/365 up-

time. Stand-alone PV power systems are the perfect fit for the railroad industry—they are a proven source of DC power

and they require very little maintenance, no ongoing fueling and have a 25+ year lifespan.

For almost 20 years Morningstar’s controllers and accessories have been helping to provide continuous, reliable

primary and standby power to these remote wayside site installations. From intermediate signals to highway crossings;

from remote site power to track circuit control; from radio and microwave communications systems to equipment

detection systems, Morningstar’s controllers and accessories have proven themselves to be the industry’s most reliable

power electronic PV system components.

Summary of content (8 pages)

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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success ABSTRACT: Photovoltaics (PV) have been successfully powering tens of thousands of critical stand-alone railroad power installations since the early 1970s—across the roughest terrains and in the harshest environments—helping power critical train movement communication systems, signaling infrastructures and wayside applications with a 24/7/365 uptime.
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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations … Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success Introduction The rail industry has been a pioneer of the digital age and a leader in many technological advances, such as sensors that can detect when wheels and tracks are about to give out from stress. Railroads were an early adopter of technologies like RFID (radio frequency identification), which uses tags and radio waves to track the flow of trains and cargo.
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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations … Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success Today, the railroad is the most cost-effective and energyefficient way to move freight. Railroads are also greener and more sustainable than ever—delivering environmental and safety benefits.4 • • Switching from truck to rail shipments means less fuel used and less greenhouse gas released. Every mile that a truck, or car for that matter, is not driven adds to the safety of everyone else on the road.
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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations … Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success Morningstar – The Controller of Choice for Railroading Since 1995, Morningstar’s controllers have been helping regulate railroad’s off-grid PV power systems. Whether the wayside systems are PV-only or Hybrid (PV + secondary energy source) power installations, our controllers and accessories have been helping the railroad industry move trains reliably, safely and on schedule.
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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations … Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success The TriStar MPPT Controller has helped make pole line maintenance safer. As pictured in the triple tower PV system installation below, the solar modules are now mounted using a retractable tower system. As such, the maintenance crew no longer has to risk a high climb –they can simply service the modules at ground level.
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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations … Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success The TriStar MPPT controller is also the PV industry’s only controller to use industrystandard communication protocols and interfaces—a perfect fit for railroad’s new requirement to have their PV systems support standards-based remote monitoring capabilities. The TriStar MPPT controller enables system monitoring and up to 200 days of data logging and uses the open MODBUS™ protocol.
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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations … Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success Summary For more than 20 years, Morningstar’s products have been helping provide stand-alone, solar electric power to many industrial system installations around the world—telecommunications, oil and gas, security and instrumentation. Further, since 1995, Morningstar’s products have been helping regulate railroad’s off-grid PV power systems.
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Photovoltaic Railroad Power Installations … Morningstar’s Controllers Are Delivering Solar Success Higher State of Charge • Morningstar’s TriStar MPPT controllers keep the batteries at a higher State of Charge (SoC), given the same PV array compared to an identical system using a competitor's controller. A higher average SoC means better battery health and longer battery bank life. It also means better and longer system autonomy.