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.
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?
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.
**guess I pissed off the gimmick lovers? Have you guys ever asked yourselves who benefits from making renewable energy more expensive to install and more impractical? By the way this article and the image for it are AI slop, the actual install is slightly less absurd than I thought from the image.
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.
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.
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.
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
All those bolts are entry points for water if not thought through.
Especially considering anything attracted 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.
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!!
Santa really needed the work!
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.
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
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.
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.
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
It’s a great idea but impractical with existing tech.
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!
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.
Putting solar panels in a valley in Switzerland is… a graphic demonstration of tunnel vision.
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.
…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.
The grid still needs baseline power when renewables aren’t renewing.
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.
You should buy a home next to a nuclear power plant.
oh yeah all that water vapor is real scary 😱
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.
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!! 🙌
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’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.
The Trump dam?
Not just on the dam itself, but across the lake to reduce evaporation - like they’ve been doing extensively in Australia.
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.
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.
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.
Maintenance access looks like a pain in the ass, and I would wonder about possible issues with snow/ice buildup and load limits, but otherw8se this is a nice use of the space.
Got news about snow and ice in Switzerland: it happens in the valleys during winter just as heavy as it ever does at the higher elevations.
Had a friend who did maintenance work on cell phone towers. Where some people see danger, others see a fat paycheck.
That paycheck eats into power costs, though.
How many kwh/year does one paycheck cover?
I dunno! Its a good question, I have no idea how much they’d actually ice up.
Maybe they have to clear it off the dam anyway, so the cost is sort of amortized?
And/or maybe the steep angle helps?
I mention it because that concrete looks clear of ice/snow to me.
Concrete has a lot of thermal mass. I could believe that it stays warm enough that ice can’t stay on the surface, especially with a reservoir of non-frozen water behind it.
The steel brackets and aluminum panel frames will get a lot colder, especially with wind blowing around them. Basically the same principle as a bridge forming ice before the road on either side of it. An exposed metal frame with a wind chill can develop ice even if the average temperature around it is above freezing.
Hmm… and that makes me wonder if the solar array bolted to the concrete surface acts like a heatsink? That would be an interesting unintended consequence.
I could believe that it stays warm enough that ice can’t stay on the surface
When the sun shines, yes. After 30 days of straight overcast? Not so much.
Interesting indeed.
They should have bolted the panels closer, with shrouds flush with the concrete around the edges! Or maybe add a coolant loop? Perhaps the concrete helps with that already, but is just too technical to include in this article.
A thermal control loop seems like it might be helpful, but the cost would have to be weighed against the remaining efficiency of a simpler setup.
Or just some person hosing them off (which kinda looks like what they’re set up to do, given the position near the railing).
Depends on the mineral content of the available water. If I hosed off solar panels with my readily available household water they’d be under a hard white (calcium carbonate) crust within a couple of dozen hosings.
Article reads like AI trash. Is there an actual source?
I’m pretty sure the photo is actually AI too, it’s definitely 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.
The solar plant makes more power than any farm in the valley. It’s hard for me to understand this. Farms make crops in my mind, not power. It’s just an odd comparison. Am I reading this wrong? Am I being a dumb dumb?
I don’t know what they are in comparison size wise but I feel like solar farm is pretty standard terminology but the mixed use threw me a bit at first also.
The solar plant makes more power than any farm in the valley.
You’ll want to read the article. Solar farms in the valley have to deal with fog during the winter months, which drastically reduces the energy they produce.
