The article does not mention it (or I did not find it skimming), but I'd consider it safe to assume that there's also a bit of a conservation angle: once a piec

The article does not mention it (or I did not find it skimming), but I'd consider it safe to assume that there's also a bit of a conservation angle: once a piece of alpine engineering is established as part of the landscape, people seem to like it a lot. Even the very same people who would pick up torch and pitchfork against anything new I think. Imagine the outrage a proposal to return the slopes of the 48 Stelvio hairpins back to their natural state, or the Landwasser viaduct, or any of the Kaprun dams. As much outrage as a proposal to install new heliostats on yet untouched rocks would get, or perhaps even more. Those dishes are monuments to what in hindsight is called the Space Age and while they'd probably fail to qualify for conservation for conservation's sake alone, giving them a second career as heliostats seems like a very pragmatic way too keep them, and keep them serviced even.