This week's sustainability spotlight: Solar shinkansen power!

Since the sustainability blogs on the site have been some of my favorites over the years, I thought I would try and bring the theme back with updates on things I see in the news that have a sustainability focus. One that caught my eye this week is JR Kyushu's plan to use solar-generated electricity to help power its bullet trains!

Coming from Australia, solar power is something I'm fairly used to seeing. Rooftop solar is huge there, so seeing solar being used to power something as substantial as a shinkansen feels like a really interesting development.

The press release I linked above mentions that from August 2027, JR Kyushu will begin receiving renewable electricity for part of the Kyushu Shinkansen Kagoshima Route through an off-site power purchase agreement, or PPA. Rather than installing solar panels directly at railway facilities, the electricity will be generated at solar facilities on the roof of a logistics center in Fukuoka Prefecture, and supplied through Kyushu Electric Power's network.

The project is expected to generate around 9.8 million kWh of electricity each year, with an estimated reduction of approximately 4,600 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually. That's roughly equivalent to the annual electricity use of 1,800 average households, which sounds massive to me!