
What if half of Switzerland's rooftops produced electricity? - denzil_correa
https://actu.epfl.ch/news/what-if-half-of-switzerland-s-rooftops-produced-el/
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ping_pong
The 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.

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gruez
Sounds like the reasonable thing to do is to the electric bill into a fixed
fee portion (infrastructure) and a variable fee portion (energy).

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icebraining
This 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.

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kwhitefoot
In 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.

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mehhh
This kind of "free market" for electricity tends to drive up infrastructure
costs needlessly (see Australia), while incentivizing bad behaviour by
generation suppliers in the market (see Enron).

Public utilities generally provide a higher caliber of service at a lower
price, with less administrative bloat.

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angry_octet
Depends on the state, but in Vic the 'poles and wires' component, both in
distribution (suburb) and transmission (pylons) costs are built into the fee
that is charged for electricity supply (cost of connectivity) in a positive
feedback loop: the more the companies invested, the more they could charge.

This was designed to avoid the 'run it into the ground's privatisation
mentality, but it went the other way. Sadly, there was no price component for
improving the network with new ideas, so it is still the same design as 100
years ago.

A system designed by accountants has done things accountants love, and nothing
for electrical engineering or the citizens. Surprise.

The old SEC wasn't innovative or cheap, and neither is the privatised system.
For incentives to be effective they have to be broken down to be smaller
components rewarding specific conduct, and tweaked in response to system
performance.

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aaron695
So 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?

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Gys
Someone did a calculation for Singapore:
[https://medium.com/sausheong/estimate-the-solar-output-of-
yo...](https://medium.com/sausheong/estimate-the-solar-output-of-your-rooftop-
with-google-maps-725e4f636f14)

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

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folli
Do any of these tools factor in average cloud cover etc.?

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Mirioron
Do 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.

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timClicks
Panels 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.

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Mirioron
I 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.

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elric
> asphalt - literal rock.

Asphalt is bitumen, a liquid, it is about as far removed from literal rock as
possible. The reason asphalt roads break down in very cold weather is water
which gets into tiny cracks, and which then expands when it freezes.

Solar panels are encased in a fairly thick layer of glass. Just like the
windows in your house, they don't break from a bit of frost. If there are
cracks where water can enter, they can break for the same reasons as asphalt.

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sb057
Anyone want to do the math on how much such a project would cost (with perhaps
a projection in 10/20 years)?

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Koremat6666
Is lack of sunlight an issue in Swiss ? I believe they have very short days
during winter ?

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alex_duf
They'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.

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seanmcdirmid
The 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.

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ben_w
The 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
In 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.

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ben_w
Five 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).

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nickik
What 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.

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bartl
Rooftops in Switzerland are covered with snow for many months each year. Yet
this article doesn't even mention the word "snow".

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Leherenn
Except 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.

