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What if half of Switzerland's rooftops produced electricity?
- Koremat6666 7y agoIs lack of sunlight an issue in Swiss ? I believe they have very short days during winter ?
- alex_duf 7y agoThey're on a fairly low latitude so no, not shorter than say France or Austria. At worst you get some shade because of the landscape. I guess that's roughly the latitude of Maine is you live on the states. So shorter days than Florida, but not crazy short either.
- ohduran 7y agoMaybe the problem isn't necessarily latitude, but light intensity. Any info on that? It's great that countries here and there are considering alternate options.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoThe mountains are more of a problem. There is a famous Swiss village that only gets a few hours of sun in the summer because the prominence of the mountains around it is so high.
- ben_w 7y agoThe population density map of Switzerland and the elevation map of Switzerland look like inverses of each other. The famous Swiss villages don’t have many people in them compared to the cities, so the situation you describe, while real, isn’t important.
- seanmcdirmid 7y agoIn the denser parts of Switzerland, apartments are very common. I don’t see how solar works when people are living in a 5 story building. I couldn't see solar working that well where I lived in Lausanne, for example, at least on a person housed/energy unit basis.
- ben_w 7y agoFive floors probably isn’t too bad, thought of course that depends entirely on how many people in each apartment and how large they are — e.g. one person in a 50 m² place, divided by five floors, with 20% efficient panels, 25% duty cycle for night/latitude, still implies 500 W, compared to the average electricity consumption in Switzerland of about 900 W per person. It’s not everything but it’s also a pretty impressively large number. (Something I only found out by looking up Swiss energy consumption: apparently Switzerland produces just over half of its current electricity from hydro power, which makes sense considering the terrain).
- jillesvangurp 7y agoI was in the Aosta valley (on the Italian side of the Swiss border, surrounded by the highest mountains in Europe) a few weeks ago in the middle of the winter. In short: yes there are only about 9-10 hours of daylight but it can get very bright when the sun comes out over the mountains for 3-4 hours. They also grow wine on the south facing parts of the mountains (which requires plenty of sun). And you have to consider that mountains often have clouds/rainy weather. Another thing to consider is the peaks of the mountains are often above the cloud layers. You can get a sun burn in the middle of the winter in Switzerland quite easily. Just because it's north of most of the US, doesn't mean solar is uneconomical. So yes, it's not optimal but there's plenty of light. And people do put solar on their roofs there and it apparently makes economical sense to them.
- thrower123 7y agoMaine doesn't exactly have usable sunlight, really, ever, between November and March. How Europeans don't freeze to death and go stark raving mad in the dark and cold when they are farther north than our Acadian Nilfheim always leaves me goggling at the wonders of the Gulf Stream.
- danans 7y ago> How Europeans don't freeze to death and go stark raving mad in the dark and cold when they are farther north than our Acadian Nilfheim always leaves me goggling at the wonders of the Gulf Stream. You win my certificate of accomplishment for best written description of a feeling that I've read so far this year.
- rjsw 7y agoThere could be a problem with a roof getting covered with snow. Sometimes Alpine pitched roofs have raised strips to stop snow all sliding off at once, you would lose that if it had PV panels on it.
- kalleboo 7y ago> I believe they have very short days during winter ? You may be thinking of Sweden
- Twixes 7y agoClassic NYSE mistake
- _nalply 7y agoAn important problem is the fog in the winter months. The nights are longer than in summer and the ground cools off. Moisture condenses and fog develops. The Swiss plateau is special that it is essentially a wide valley about 60 miles wide and 200 miles long. The Rhine and the Rhone rivers leave Switzerland through constrictions. So the cold air tends to stay. During the day the sun warms the clear air above the fog such that a temperature inversion manifests itself. Such a situation can be very stable for weeks. Sometimes it even snows slightly under the fog cover. The Swiss living in the plateau complain about the depressing dark and gray weather and try to flee as often as they can by going up somewhere, sometimes the next hill is enough if the fog cover is not very high. Some cities are more affected than others, for example Zurich, Lucerne and Aarau can have months of fog some years. Google sea of fog switzerland to get some pictures. These are beautiful.
- Gys 7y agoNasa provides historical data on the amount of solar energy reaching the surface for any point on planet: https://power.larc.nasa.gov/docs/v1/ https://power.larc.nasa.gov/docs/v1/
- sb057 7y agoAnyone want to do the math on how much such a project would cost (with perhaps a projection in 10/20 years)?
- ydb 7y agoIt may supply 40% of electricity demand, but when climate change causes widespread systemic social and economic collapse, I can assure you that your precious solar panels won't be much help. You can't eat photovoltaic cells.
- ping_pong 7y agoThe other thing that would happen that no one talks about is that electricity rates would skyrocket because the power company wasn't making enough money. This is exactly what happened in Ontario, Canada. People started conserving and it caused rates to go up. Same thing happened with water in California (at least the Bay Area). People started conserving better, so to reward us, they raised water rates.
- gruez 7y agoSounds like the reasonable thing to do is to the electric bill into a fixed fee portion (infrastructure) and a variable fee portion (energy).
- icebraining 7y agoThis is exactly what is done in some countries, like Portugal. The main difference is that a fully variable model subsidizes solar panel owners at the expense of the other clients, which makes solar panels a more attractive investment, whereas here the case for home solar is much weaker, particularly for low energy consumers.
- kwhitefoot 7y agoIn Norway we pay three different amounts, sometimes to two separate entities. I pay the company that supplies the electricity per kilowatt-hour for the energy and the company that owns the local distribution network for the rental of the cables and a per kilowatt-hour fee for transporting the energy. In my case it is just one company but the energy supplier could be separate from the infrastructure owner.
- Scoundreller 7y agoPlease tell me it’s at least coordinated enough that the two entities send it together on one bill.
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- Gys 7y agoSomeone did a calculation for Singapore: https://medium.com/sausheong/estimate-the-solar-output-of-your-rooftop-with-google-maps-725e4f636f14 https://medium.com/sausheong/estimate-the-solar-output-of-yo... His conclusion: 'This is about 7.3 TWh or 11.5% of the 63.4 TWh of expected Singapore’s electricity consumption in 2030' He also made an interesting tool to calc easily the output of solar panels on your rooftop: https://sausheong.github.io/solarest/ https://sausheong.github.io/solarest/ The only thing missing there is an easy way to get the average sunpower for some place in the world. I made a small app to calc that from the nasa website but unfortunately did not yet have time to put it online
- folli 7y agoDo any of these tools factor in average cloud cover etc.?
- Mirioron 7y agoDo solar panels wear down in extreme weather? Eg if it regularly drops below -30C in winter, will that have a negative impact on the solar panel's lifespan? Because if it does then that's another factor to consider.
- timClicks 7y agoPanels are typically extremely hardy and are rated for decades (although I don't know about icy conditions). The rest of the electrical components are typically the weakest link.
- Mirioron 7y agoI understand that solar panels are hardy, but these kinds of icy conditions even impact things such as asphalt - literal rock. I find it somewhat difficult believe that there's no wear and treat associated with icy weather, but I can't find any information on it. It's all promotional material that assuages all worries.
- effnorwood 7y agoGreta would still be wrong.
- aaron695 7y agoSo all this study actually did was estimate roof coverage in Switzerland using a new method? The figure is pretty easy to estimate anyway, but they used the Machine Learning OMG method? > What if half of Switzerland's rooftops produced electricity? What would be interesting if someone did some work and actually worked this out, no? How would infrastructure change? What backups would be needed? Could surplus, if any, be used for anything? Could you connect to other countries in new ways? How would employment be effected? Supply chains for materials? Reflected and absorbed energy would change city heat sinks how? Would smog change at all?
- bartl 7y agoRooftops in Switzerland are covered with snow for many months each year. Yet this article doesn't even mention the word "snow".
- Leherenn 7y agoExcept they're not, for the vast majority of them. Yes, it might be true in the ski resorts, but most people leave in the plains. Zürich has barely had any snowfall this year. Even in snowier years, it's a few days per year at most.
- kitsune_ 7y agoContrary to popular opinion, most of Switzerland's population does not live in the mountains.
- nickik 7y agoWhat if we just build another nuclear plant instead? Lets just go China or South Korea to build one for us. Or even better plan on some next Gen designs that are gone be coming out in the next 10ish years.