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

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/49103510

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.

  • Multiplexer@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
    11·
    15 days ago

    3 time as much as a valley installation did sound disappointingly meager, and I was about to comment so, until I read the actual article:
    https://www.axpo.com/ch/en/energy/generation-and-distribution/solar-power/alpinsolar.html

    Turns out, the heading and text snippet somewhat understates the wintertime production during the darkest months.
    Look at this figure, almost flat production across the year, which is a huge thing:

    But most importantly, it does not compare it to plants in the valleys, but to plants on the Swiss plateau, which is basically mainly flat and devoid of the usual very steep and shaded Swiss valleys.

    So this is an unexpectedly great.
    Alpine solar power plants for the win, as it seems!

  • Fishnoodle@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    15 days ago

    How did they build that dam in the first place with no road access? That seems impressive in itself

    • catdog@lemmy.mlEnglish
      2·
      15 days ago

      I would first build a cable lift, then a pipeline for concrete, then the dam.

      Warming: Not an expert at all; I live in the flattest country on earth.

      • sunnie@slrpnk.netEnglish
        4·
        14 days ago

        Are you Dutch? Historically, Dutch engineers have handled some pretty impressive mountainous civil engineering projects.