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.
The actual non-AI article about the dam: https://www.axpo.com/ch/en/energy/generation-and-distribution/solar-power/alpinsolar.html
Here are some images of the dam sourced from Axpo encoded from 117MiB to 626 KiB (720p AVIF)
Images
Why the fuck would everyone say solar doesn’t make sense up where it’s cold and clear where anyone who knows anything about the topic knows that solar is most efficient?
It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.
- Upton Sinclair
- Michael Scott
Quite a dam advancement.
An example of some great dam thinking by a group of smart dam people.
I have a very serious issue with this!
What about the profits for coal companies! How are they supposed to make money! What if they go out of business!
WON’T SOMEBODY THINK ABOUT COAL INDUSTRY PROFITS!
They’re going to cool off the sun if they aren’t careful. /s
I seriously used to work with a guy who thought wind turbines might have negative impact on the environment because it was “taking the wind”.
Weeeeeeelllllll
So, like, not completely wrong?
The energy output by a wind turbine has to come from somewhere. It is taking it from the wind.
You’re not wrong, but he thought that was harmful.
Just out of curiosity, did you try to explain to him that it’s the wind moving the turbine?
Some of the wind is converted into electricity, so the wind is reduced. Might not be a lot, but it could have some kind of an impact.
As far as I can tell from what I’ve been able to look up, that’s not quite how it works. The wind itself isn’t converted into electricity. The turbine extracts kinetic energy from the moving air and converts a portion of that energy into electrical energy. As a result, the air leaving the turbine is moving more slowly than the air entering it.
That reduction in wind speed is real, but it’s localized. Atmospheric mixing continually replenishes the slower-moving air with faster-moving air from above and the surrounding area, so the effect largely dissipates as you move away from the wind farm. The amount of energy extracted is so small that it doesn’t have any meaningful effect beyond the immediate vicinity of the wind farm.
🤷
I don’t know. It’s alarming how many people don’t even have a rudimentary understanding of basic scientific principles. We were taught the laws of thermodynamics in elementary school here in the states in the early '90s for me.
The wind itself isn’t converted into electricity. The turbine extracts kinetic energy from the moving air and converts a portion of that energy into electrical energy. As a result, the air leaving the turbine is moving more slowly than the air entering it.
That’s what I said, just without mentioning all the stuff in between - I’m sure that there’s cables and other boring details involved as well ;-)
Switzerland is one of the only countries where it makes any sense to do this kind of nonsense because they’re already almost completely on renewable power. I shudder to think of how high the installation cost per watt is when you need rope access teams drilling into concrete. Some IRATA certified electrician probably bought a vacation home with the money from just this project.
‘wow the panels are 50% more efficient during winter, and it only cost 1000% more to install compared to a conventional rooftop’
*Ok I checked, it cost about 3.6 CHF per nameplate watt. Roughly double residential rooftop solar in Switzerland, which itself is again about double what a ground mount array costs. So still bad, not nearly as bad as I thought. This also is only the original install cost. Apparently they’ve had to do significant repairs, including replacing 270 panels, because of snow and ice damage. From the bit of extra research I did on this I think the primary purpose of this install was to ease the path to getting more alpine solar installation approved. Because this definitely isn’t economically viable and I don’t think they expected it to be. But there is potential for economically viable alpine solar farms if they can get approval for development.
**By the way this article and the image for it are AI slop, the actual install is slightly less absurd than the article makes it look.
the actual dam
The install generates 3x more power than an equivalent solar farm at lower altitude during the winter months, but costs 4x more to build. Doesn’t really add up. For a smaller investment you could have the same amount of winter production and 3x as much production during the other 3/4 of the year.And? Its new information for future construction, highlights the importance of doing this along with any repairs or new builds where you’re doing some of that work anyway.
Confirms the energy is there.
And its literally on a damn, so storing excess with pumped hydro is can be done with like 0 transmission inefficiency.
‘confirms the energy is there’ buddy it’s the sun, we already know it’s there. It doesn’t make sense to install capacity at 12 euros per watt when you can install capacity for 1 euro per watt or whatever the numbers actually are. I would be shocked if transmission losses are anywhere even close to cost efficiency losses.
The swiss do this sort of thing because they have the money to burn and place a high emphasis on aesthetics. They probably think this is less of an eyesore than ground mount so that makes it worth it for them.
My poibt is its a good demonstration case.
this comment should be at the top. My dumbass didn’t realize this was an AI image
I encoded the actual images down in another comment
Yeah people and the media have this weird fascination with putting solar panels in new places. I don’t think finding locations to add them is as big of an issue for how much people seem to care and want to “solve” it.
In a lot of way, the electric grid binds us all together because we have to maintain and improve on the other side of that, it’s a powerful way to motivate folks(rimshot). A lot of countries have had issues with this over the years.
Trying to put solar back in that “box” is not a good use of our time.
It’s not cold fusion, but it just may be close enough.
Could fusion is and always was completely nonsense, it was a design flaw of a measurement instrument that made people think it worked, even though everyone who worked in nuclear fusion immediately dismissed as impossible. There’s a great book that covers the subject called atomic adventures, written by one of the guys very involved in disproving the idea
You’re very wrong about Switzerland. About 45% of their energy use is from oil and gas.
No. 58% is renewable and 25% is nuclear. See: https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/CH/all/yearly
That’s only electricity generation, not energy use, like the original commenter replied
I could have sworn I looked this up recently, I might have been thinking of Austria.
*oh that figure includes combustion heating, I think I saw their domestic electricity production mix.
Stupid question, never wondered how dams are constructed (and location chosen): Isn’t there a risk of them being flooded, like in an emergency dump scenario?
Absolutely! They have spillways for this scenario. Practical Engineering on YouTube has a few videos on spillways and a spillway failure.
Dams normaly have a specificly designed spillway as it could otherwise be VERY dangerus (the water removeing dirt at its base , possably leading to dam failure)
I doubt the solar panels were put on it tho
If water is just overflowing it entirely like a glass of water then shits so fucked that the solar panels just dont matter
I imagine they had to do a lot of calculations in order to be sure this installation would not compromise the dam. But if this could be applied in other locations, it could be extremely benificial.
Honestly, I think it wouldn’t be a problem in any dam. I’m sure they made all the required studies but dams are so thick and made to withstand such great forces that a couple of solar panels bolted on would be negligible. I bet 10cm of water rise would be a way bigger load
Especially considering anything
attractedattached to the dam is going to add a vertical force that could do more to help with the lateral force from the water than it would do to bring the dam closer to collapse, though probably does closer to nothing to the overall physics of the dam.Edit: Fixed a word as I don’t think the existence of damphiles has any effect on the performance of dams until they start drilling/punching holes in them.
All those bolts are entry points for water if not thought through.
That’s a Dam good idea
But goats be pissed.
I’m sure the greatest-of-all-times will understand
I’d imagine that goats can walk on solar panels too.
And munch on them.
Without even damaging them…
I’ll be Dam, that’s clever
someone bolted thousands of solar panels to a place almost no one thought was worth it.
“Someone”
2026 journalism
Alright yeah okay, it was me
Must have been a hell of a day to bolt all of these!
twas indeed
“We went to bed one night, and when we woke the next morning, they were there! Someone must have bolted them on.”
Did you know? If you leave dishes in the sink, they will magically be cleaned and put away the next day! I told by partner and then stared at me dumbfounded.
Wish someone would just overnight install a vast solar array on my roof. I’d love getting money from the power company every month, instead of giving it to them.
You’ll never believe who!!
Dams hate this one weird trick!
That joke checks a lot of boxes
Santa really needed the work!
Oh, the power company owning the dam.
I mean, the dam is already wired into the power grid, the top of the dam gets far more hours of sun than the valleys, it’s almost as if “someone” didn’t think about things before being amazed at the outcome.
In the United States, this is called treason because it makes Donald Trump PP in his pants
This thread is now about 'Murica
Murica thinks everything is about Murica
This is the Internet. Everything is about America. for fucks sake, we invented it.
sorry to sound like a dick, but seriously… If you don’t like that, invent your own Internet
r/ShitAmericansSay
the itnernet wasn’t created by the US. it started as ARPNET, which yes was created in the US. but the internet that we know today wasn’t created in the US, the WORLD wide web was created in Switerland in 1989 by Sir Tim Berners-Lee while working at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). the world wide web, or the internet, uses a lot of the same protocols that ARPNET created. but ARPNET is not and was not world wide until Sir Tim used the same protocols to allow regular people to traverse ARPNET from around the world. the US built the underlying tech, but Sir Tim Berners-Lee and CERN built the internet on top.
claiming the US created the internet is false, just like saying Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. when Edison bought the patent from two Canadians named Henry Woodward (a medical student) and Mathew Evans (a hotel keeper) from Toronto Ontario, who actually invented the incandescent light bulb 5 years (1874) before edison bought the patent. Henry and Mathew only sold the canadian and US patents in 1879 to edison because they lacked the funds and could not find any investors to manufacture them. at best what edison did was improved the filament inside so they lasted longer. but buying a patent is not the same as inventing it.
just more failure of the US education system.
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invent your own Internet
Seriously, please. The one we have now sucks.
Everyone’s a critic
This has to be a bad troll comment. It’s like saying “This is pizza, you can’t talk about anything other than Italy when eating it”.
How are you this dumb?
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Only a little bit of poop*, once in a while… okay! 😤😡
Just during press briefings. “Everyone out!”
Lies!
Donald’s adult diapers stop his PP from reaching his pants.
Those are the lies
Facts!! 🙌
…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. 🙄
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.
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.
Probably because they decided that the cost didn’t make sense anymore in the face of renewables.
The political costs of nuclear power are astronomical. Safety regulation is A) a very good idea, but B) grossly overblown and C) outrageously costly to implement to the levels NIMBYs demand. Satisfying them that a windmill isn’t going to fall over and kill them is a lot easier.
The grid still needs baseline power when renewables aren’t renewing.
Baseline power has become an outdated concern thanks to renewables.
Go look up baseline power, or whatever the technical term for grid stability is.
What grids value more these days is easily dispatchable power. Sources that you can turn on and off easily to respond to market conditions.
You should buy a home next to a nuclear power plant.
No I prefer to live by the motorway/s
I think that the Chernobyl disaster made much more psychological damages than real ones, in the long term.
It was very useful to Big Oil.
oh yeah all that water vapor is real scary 😱
Solar is much cheaper than nuclear in the long run, you dumbass
Yep, but require much more space. And it could be not available when you need it.
Try slapping a nuclear plant on the side of a dam :) Solar can be installed so many places but of cause, needs help (like batteries, wind turbines, other power generation) to deliver power when the sun is not around.
I agree with you, content-wise, but there’s no need to insult people. It provokes emotions that add nothing reasonable and productive.
Let’s work together on a better, kinder world <3
you seem delightful. People must really like you in your personal life.
What’s your source? Solar panels certainly are much easier and cheaper to setup, but what about over 40 years (average age of reacrors in France)?
Levelized cost of energy. It considers the full lifetime cost. And LCOE of solar is less than half that of fission.
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.Wait till they find out about batteries!
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?
Must solve all problems at the same time for entire country, can’t possibly wind things down while building up alternatives. Only good solution is nuclear, ignore all previous nuclear issues, they were one offs that only happened because people were stupid. We now smart humans will never have stupid or corrupt people.
Really I don’t even dislike nuclear, some people treat it as the only option when there are clearly alternatives, and solar and batteries appears to be one.
That’s what is happening but it not happening fast enough. Batteries are great but unless you build out a LOT of them and combine with intelligent grids and power consumption you aren’t covering the output of a nuclear power plant. If you are decommissioning a nuclear plant then you had better have alternative power available otherwise you end up like Germany who did that and then had pull a lot of power from Frances nuclear excess as well as burning extra gas for power. I like renewables, I have solar + battery at home, I’ve built flow battery models and fuel cells to experiment with. I’ve written software to turn my house (and hopefully include my neighbours soon) into a virtual power plant based on my houses output as well as the wholesale market price. It’s difficult to manage when people expect a light to turn on at any time they want. I just get tired of people saying renewables are the only option and when it inevitably isn’t just yet having to burn more fossil fuels when the existing nuclear plant can continue
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.
Who is paying for it? I have solar and battery at home. It cost me an amount that a lot of people can’t afford and its rare that I don’t have to pull from the grid every day while at other times the power company is paying me to take energy from the grid because there is too much renewable energy being produced.
My country is building out battery parks as much as its able to. Every site seems to get bogged down with nimby protesters who all seems to want renewable energy but not near them. I am all for renewable energy, I just think a lot of people don’t understand the scale of whats required to replace a single nuclear power plant.
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.
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.
Why would you be heating at night?
Like seriously, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t turn their heating significantly down before going to bed. You only need to heat the bedrooms which are also generally colder.
Same with air conditioning. It’s primarily needed when it’s actually hot, which - as it turns out - is when the sun is shining and energy prices are low.
Besides: It completely ignores decentralized energy storage. Households with batteries can just let them charge when energy prices are low and discharge when prices are high.
There’s a reason smart meters are starting to be mandated. People will need to adjust their habits slightly¹ but that’s just the price to pay for sustainable energy.
¹Like very slightly. As in checking the energy price forecast before doing laundry.
Edit: A couple basic introductions to the topic to read up on if you’re interested:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter (also read up on AMI)
Content farm “articles” are difficult to distinguish from AI.
It’s a good idea, if the dam faces a good direction (North probably isn’t worth it) even without the additional benefits of altitude.
Good shout.
Here is an older article on the start of construction from a publicly funded news organization:
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/sci-tech/switzerland-builds-biggest-alpine-solar-plant/46883572
Here is the article from when it was done (September 2022!), but this one isn’t available in English I’m afraid:
As a primary source, here’s the project page of one of the involved companies:
https://www.axpo.com/ch/en/energy/generation-and-distribution/solar-power/alpinsolar.html
Edit: Corrected the first link. Had too many tabs open and posted this one by accident: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/archive-alpine-environment/construction-starts-on-first-large-scale-solar-park-in-swiss-alps/87531886
I’ve thought for YEARS that we should to the same thing with the Hoover Dam. Should also mount wind turbines on the face of it to catch the updrafts out of the canyon. You all acting like green energy has to be mutually exclusive to one another. Wind turbine blades have a lot of surface area that could be covered in solar panels, which solves the issue of solar panels energy output decreasing with heat because then they’d always have built in cooling. No wind? There’s still light and some wattage is better than no wattage. Put the turbine blade head on a giant hinge and they can catch rising air from the grounds’ radiant heat at night. Free energy is everywhere if you just know where to look and how to take advantage of it.
Wind turbine blades have a lot of surface area that could be covered in solar panels, which solves the issue of solar panels energy output decreasing with heat because then they’d always have built in cooling.
That is a stupid idea. Blade weight is one of the biggest engineering issues for wind turbines.
It’s a great idea but impractical with existing tech.
if you can get a solar cell in a 6 oz calculator, I doubt highly that incorporating it into the design of the blade is going to add much more weight than the expanded aluminum and fibreglass that’s already there.
Are you listening to yourself? Because a 4 cm² solar cell fits in a 170 g calculator, that means that 200-300 m² of solar cells will be fine for the 35 ton turbine blades at around π/2/s of angular momentum with the outer radius of 100m? Those concepts are barely related.
You have no idea if the fiber glass blades have the tensile force to spare to deal with 3 tons of extra weight from the panels alone, or what it will do to the bearings in the generator if you load them 10% or 15% more, or how much flat panels will fuck up your blade aerodynamics, or how expensive it will be to get custom curved panels to preserver the aerodynamics.
Just hand waving everything that stands against your idea away as solvable is magical thinking, not visionary brilliance.
Right, and we’ll never walk on the moon, either. Got it.
Any extra weight is too much. Plus a 6 oz calculator doesn’t usually fly at 300km/h in open weather, you will need some strong (heavy) glass or plastic too protect the panels. Much simpler too just put them on the ground next to the wind turbine.
if it’s a structural engineering problem then it’s probably solvable. perhaps they can be added like fins on the blade which would disrupt turbulence, reduce drag and sound, much like how an owl has ragged feathers to allow them to have silent flight.
But why? We’ll make better blades without the extra weight of the solar panels and cheaper panels by just putting them on the ground.
“infrasound” complainers
Always be aware of people who throw that word “stupid” around. They are usually hiding their own deficiencies.
I thought making turbine blades significantly heavier was the stupidest idea in this thread, but you’ve proved me wrong!
I don’t limit my stupidity to just one thread, pal. You need to think bigger.
Maybe it’s no big deal, but I imagine there’s a significant complication of the blades to do that. They’re basically wings, and (again, I’d imagine) are structurally sensitive.
Agree with your general point of mix and match and combine
solar cells are basically a membrane. it’s usually the mounting frame that adds the weight.
Maybe it’s no big deal, but I imagine there’s a significant complication of the blades to do that. They’re basically wings, and (again, I’d imagine) are structurally sensitive.
I think a problem could be that the wind turbines are moving parts, so they somehow vibrate, and that could be a problem for the dam while panel on the other hand are basically a layer of paint.
You all acting like green energy has to be mutually exclusive to one another.
I certainly don’t. But I agree, there’s a lot of ideas that die on the cutting room floor because they don’t pander to a specific lobbying interest.
Putting solar panels in a valley in Switzerland is… a graphic demonstration of tunnel vision.
I tried (but not very hard) to check what the highest altitude dam in the world is, but searches kept giving me the tallest dams instead. But, for anyone who’s wondering, I also looked up what the highest altitude solar farm in the world is, and it turns out it’s the Huadian Tibet Caipeng project, at 5,228 meters (17,152 feet) above sea level on the highest plateau in the world. I have to wonder if snow accumulation outweighs the benefits of the lower temperatures and thinner atmosphere.
usually snow slides off solar panels fairly easily since they are smooth, tilted, and absorb heat.
It can build up overnight though, so I think the question remains valid.
Smooth and tilted still applies. Also, being a mesa, I wouldn’t be surprised if there was wind as a factor. Turns out the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit ended up lasting longer than originally expected in part because the winds on Mars ended up cleaning the accumulated dust on the solar panels.
Just to add a little anecdotal story, our solar panels were quite good at getting rid of snow. It took a little while after the sun come up but once a little bit of the panels were exposed, it started to go fast.
Good point, great comparison.
yeah i mean even after it’s built up it will slide off in sheets when there is enough sun.
I was more referring to snowpack - at this elevation, multiple days of snowfall accumulating several feet deep is common in some parts of the world. For reference, the tallest mountain in Colorado is 3000 feet lower. I assume it’s a pretty arid region, or they wouldn’t have built it.
Maybe search for highest-altitude reservoirs instead of dams?
I would imagine that you could set up some sort of insulated battery and/or capacitor setup that could be used to melt off any accumulated snow and ice once a storm passes with some heating elements embedded in the photovoltaics. Though, that probably introduces the issue of falling frozen debris striking panels lower down on the dam. Nonetheless, given the efficiency gains, it’s probably a problem worth solving - especially since this Swiss proof-of-concept seems to be working out so well.
photovoltaic panels are just giant diodes you can run them in reverse and every panel gets that 0.6V voltage drop like any other silicon junction
apacitor setup that could be used to melt off any accumulated snow and ice once a storm passes with some heating elements embedded in the photovoltaics.
It doesn’t really answer your question, but this article calls the Muttsee the highest reservoir in Europe, at least that’s something.
Article reads like AI trash. Is there an actual source?
I’m
prettydefinitely sure the photo is AI too, it’s certainly not the Muttsee dam.There was a lot of news about the Muttsee Dam solar project a few years ago, so it’s a real thing and a good thing. But it’s hardly current news. It’s been operational since 2022.
