Switzerland bolted 5,000 solar panels onto a dam wall 8,000 feet up in the freezing Alps where everyone said solar made no sense, and the plant now makes three times more winter power than any farm down in the valleys
▻https://www.ecoportal.net/en/switzerland-5000-alpine-solar-muttsee-dam-winter-power/28487
Why anyone would build solar up there
To understand it, you have to know Switzerland’s real energy problem.
The trouble was always the dark half of the year.
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.
Wind power, which could help in winter, has struggled to get built in Switzerland.
Normal solar is little help, because a panel on the flat lowlands makes only about a quarter of its power in the winter months.
Down in the valleys, thick winter fog can sit for weeks, and the panels beneath it barely stir.
So the country needed power in exactly the season solar usually gives the least.
