Switzerland bolted 5,000 solar panels onto a dam wall 8,000 feet up in the freezing Alps where everyone said solar made no sense, and the plant now makes three times more winter power than any farm down in the valleys
www.ecoportal.net
High in the Swiss Alps, on a concrete dam wall more than 8,000 feet above the sea, someone bolted thousands of solar panels to a place almost no one thought

Up on the dam, almost everything that looks like a problem becomes an advantage.

The plant sits above the fog line, in thin, clear air that lets far more sunlight through.

The higher you go, the stronger and cleaner the sunlight becomes.

Cold actually helps, because solar panels work more efficiently when they are not baking in heat.

And then there is the snow, which acts like a giant mirror, bouncing extra light up onto the panels from below.

Scientists call it the albedo effect, and it can lift a mountain plant’s output well beyond anything possible in the valley.

A test site at a similar height recorded yearly output far above a typical Swiss plant.

  • jpreston2005@lemmy.worldEnglish
    427·
    5 hours ago

    …the assumption was simple, that solar belongs low and warm, on sunny roofs and flat fields, not up in the freezing thin air of the mountains.

    Well that’s a stupid assumption. what other kind of electronic works better when it’s super hot??

    The country makes plenty of power in summer, but runs short in winter, when demand climbs and it has to import electricity.

    That gap is set to grow as the nation closes its nuclear plants.

    Damn, two stupid ideas from the Swiss. At least the fabled “someone” put those solar panels up there. 🙄

    • wewbull@feddit.ukEnglish
      10·
      3 hours ago

      Nuclear plants have a limited life time. You have to replace what ages out, and they haven’t been. Probably because they decided that the cost didn’t make sense anymore in the face of renewables.

      • Ninjasftw@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 hours ago

        So you’re happy to go without power after sunset then?
        Until we have more storage options or diversified sources then that’s what you get. Or do you think it will all happen by magic?
        Maybe try being less rude unless you have a solution that doesn’t just involve wishful thinking.

        • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
          1·
          1 hour ago

          Supply controlled energy grid.

          Money is extremely good at influencing energy demand. If your power bill increases tenfold per kwh at night then you will do your laundry during the day when it’s cheap. It only requires smart electric meters which are starting to be the norm.

          Electric cars can further function as home batteries if they support bidirectional charging.

    • Randelung@lemmy.worldEnglish
      101·
      3 hours ago

      Yeah, the fears about nucular are global I’m afraid. The Swiss decided 40 years ago that they would no longer invest in nuclear energy and massively reduce upkeep on the existing reactors, thereby making issues a self fulfilling prophecy. Most of the reactors have now reached their end of life, if not ten years ago. So turning them off is really a necessity, but building new ones now would be stupid.