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.

  • Ninjasftw@lemmy.worldEnglish
    43·
    24 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.

      • Ninjasftw@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        12 hours ago

        Ffs this is exactly what I mean… To power Switzerland for only 6 hours (38GWh), you would need approximately 30,000 to 35,000 utility-scale batteries. Where and how exactly are you building them?

        • Ghoelian@piefed.socialEnglish
          1·
          3 hours ago

          Not a problem if you have your own panels and your own battery.

          I’m not a city planner so i dont know where they’d go if you want to support the whole country, maybe ask one of them?

          Also, you don’t need to immediately take over the electricity of the whole damn country. Just start with one battery park somewhere, that already helps somewhat, and build out from there.

    • yetAnotherUser@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      3·
      23 hours 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.

      • Commuting4375@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 hours ago

        Ah yes, the abstinence technique. Brilliant.

        I for one like the ability to heat my home at night in the winter, not have it be >30°C inside in the summer (system has to catch up at night), keep my living space at a reasonable humidity, cook food, and use modern amenities without incurring a ridiculous cost.

        There’s no other way to cut it. We will need more electrical capacity than today, not less.