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 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Baseline power has become an outdated concern thanks to renewables.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.