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.
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