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.
That’s a Dam good idea
But goats be pissed.
I’d imagine that goats can walk on solar panels too.
Without even damaging them…
And munch on them.
I’m sure the greatest-of-all-times will understand
I’ll be Dam, that’s clever
In the United States, this is called treason because it makes Donald Trump PP in his pants
Only a little bit of poop*, once in a while… okay! 😤😡
Just during press briefings. “Everyone out!”
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
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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r/ShitAmericansSay
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Lies!
Donald’s adult diapers stop his PP from reaching his pants.
Those are the lies
Facts!! 🙌
someone bolted thousands of solar panels to a place almost no one thought was worth it.
“Someone”
2026 journalism
“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
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.
Santa really needed the work!
Alright yeah okay, it was me
Must have been a hell of a day to bolt all of these!
twas indeed
…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.
Solar is much cheaper than nuclear in the long run, you dumbass
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
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?
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.Well in the case of the Netherlands, solar panels used to be subsidised by the government (I think that program ended last year or something), and currently, you can get subsidies for home batteries. The government does also want to fix the grif after all.
There’s actually quite a lot of people here that have solar panels and a home battery here, enough to make a measurable difference when imbalance ia high.
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
That is rad. My father started with solar domestic hot water heating, then got some PV solar, never bothered with batteries (it was at a time when batteries kind of sucked). Did ok for our northern latitudes. Power company didn’t encourage it though which makes it feel like a bit of an uphill battle. I’m thinking of doing my own house but again, it seems like you’ve got to be the expert if you want to make it work, and power companies aren’t happy to have your contributions.
I guess I just get a bit - understanding when people say they are scared of nuclear. I do realize that in aggregate fossile has been way worse than nuclear.
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.
you seem delightful. People must really like you in your personal life.
You should buy a home next to a nuclear power plant.
oh yeah all that water vapor is real scary 😱
No I prefer to live by the motorway/s
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?
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 ;-)
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 biggest lesson from thermodynamics is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch. We may only be taking a minuscule fraction of the wind energy, but taken to an extreme there are bound to be some bad effects. In between those extremes, there are likely less predictable effects like disruption to local wind patterns.
I doubt we’re anywhere near that and there’s probably little chance of ever getting close to that without huge jet stream harvesting generators or turbines covering most of the land, but we can’t pretend that the energy is free and completely without side-effects.
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.
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Good point, great comparison.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Putting solar panels in a valley in Switzerland is… a graphic demonstration of tunnel vision.
Article reads like AI trash. Is there an actual source?
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.
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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
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.
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My poibt is its a good demonstration case.
You’re very wrong about Switzerland. About 45% of their energy use is from oil and gas.
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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
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
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
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.
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
Not only that, but it also works brilliantly on farms, giving sheep something to hide under for shade, makes their wool higher quality, and the earth underneath retains more moisture, and well as holding more dew for later in the day.
I would think solar would be even more efficient high up in mountains.
Colder temperatures mean they’d stay cooler, produce more power, and for longer… and they are higher up in the air, so amount of photons hitting the panels has to be higher than at sea level, too, further increasing power generation.
At least thats what I’d assume, applying some common sense and a little educated guessing.
I read the German source article someone else posted and you’re spot on. The thinner air is the main advantage for the reason you mentioned. But apparently snow-reflected light off the surrounding peaks is a significant factor as well. I find that interesting.
I’m confused by the albedo argument. The reflected light would need to reach the solar panels, but the panels are facing up. So how could a surface of ice/snow be sufficiently facing the solar panels to reflect a significant amount of sun light towards the panels?
Edit: nevermind, using my hands to draw imaginary angles, I’ve concluded it can work with a facing normal white slope for some sun position if the orientation is favorable.
Hold out your hand flat, palm facing straight up. Now tilt it at any angle without going perpendicular to the ground, but let’s just use 45 degrees for example.
With your hand tilted backwards just a bit, but still facing upward overall, look across the room and you can predict where you would need to squat down to see the palm of your hand even if you were on the ground.
This shows light can travel in a straight line from that spot on the ground to the palm of your hand even though your palm is still facing upward overall, albeit at an angle of 45 degrees (and there is a spot on the ground that works at any angle, but the spot is farther away if the hand is tilted less).
if you look at the picture in the article, you can see they’re not angled up very far. They’re actually almost vertical.
Apparently bifacial panels are a thing, TIL!
bifacial
I should call him…
Angled upwards, but not so much that reflected light from below can’t hit the panels
I’m not sure if anyone said this already and the comments but this should be a great idea for the Hoover dam and or whatever the damn’s name is over by Lake Powell. There are almost dead pool at this point.
Not just on the dam itself, but across the lake to reduce evaporation - like they’ve been doing extensively in Australia.
The Trump dam?
