Ski Lift Running on Solar Power

Brucie wrote:

Dave Mac wrote:The point about diesel v solar is that after 6 years, you Brucie, are paying for your diesel, bio or non- bio, and have to buy your lift pass, whereas Ally has recouped all of her investment, and is then skiing for free. Every year.

Sorry Dave, but I dont agree that a capital cost of 3/4 of a million poundscould be recouped in 6 years. This would entail making a gross profit of £125,000 per year or a yield on investment of 16.66% which in todays financial climate would be astronomical.

If you can confirm these figures, I suggest we all club together and buy the J2ski solar drag lift somewhere, say Niederau, sit back and count the cash as it rolls in!!!

Brucie,
It was the solar panel part of the lift that I had estimated would pay for itself in 6 years, not the whole lift. They needed to build a new drag lift anyway, which they would have had to fund through the profits associated with it (from tourism, lift pass, whatever ...).

I got lost in all that German, but SwingBeep said that the solar bit of the lift was going to cost 420,000 Swiss Francs, which is £253,000.

I had another go at that electricity price calculator, and put in 18 kW and 'integrated' for the sort of solar system (I am only guessing here) and this time I was rewarded with an electricity price of 62.5rp per kWh which equates to 38 pence per kWh. It is designed to produce 90,000 kWh per year, so it should generate an annual gross income from selling the electricity of £34,200. And, if it works the same as the British system, they also get the electricity they use for free. The lift is estimated to use 22,000 kWh which at 10 pence per unit (I don't know how much Swiss electricty costs but maybe someone will correct me here) is worth £2,200 p.a. So gross income from electricity generated by the solar panels would be £36,400.

£253,280 divided by £36,400 is 7. So, yes I was out by a bit. According to my slightly dodgy calculations it would take 7 years, not 6 to pay for the solar part of the ski lift, and that's only if you ignore the cost of borrowing the money or the loss by not being able to invest it elsewhere.

It would be nice if someone involved in the Tenna project would step in and give us the real figures, so I wouldn't have to keep guestimating.

Ally

"Opportunity cost" is what you are getting at I think.

The lift doesn't seem that expensive (even although it is only a drag lift). Modern lifts generally run in to millions, if not tens of millions, of pounds/dollars/euros.

Pablo Escobar wrote:"Opportunity cost" is what you are getting at I think.

The lift doesn't seem that expensive (even although it is only a drag lift). Modern lifts generally run in to millions, if not tens of millions, of pounds/dollars/euros.

Thanks Pablo, the opportunity cost of investing in the solar PV system and not in something else is exactly what I meant. But it would be rather difficult to calculate.

SwingBeep said the lift was only 500m long and I don't know what the vertical rise is.

I looked at the operating hours of the lift, and SwingBeep was quite right - it is shut for most of the time! It is only open from the 19th December to the 14th March, and its operating hours are; 9-30 to 12-00 and 13-00 to 16-00.
I have never seen a ski lift before that shuts for lunch

Ally

AllyG wrote:

I looked at the operating hours of the lift, and SwingBeep was quite right - it is shut for most of the time! It is only open from the 19th December to the 14th March, and its operating hours are; 9-30 to 12-00 and 13-00 to 16-00.
I have never seen a ski lift before that shuts for lunch

Ally

Ally, you have not lived until you have been on a lift that has shut for lunch

As it was a draglift, there was not too much carnage, we all skied away

This was in Italy, I'm unsure if the practice is still followed.

Brucie, I was using Aly's payback time.
For domestic installations, the payback is a) £1000/year for a £12k investment, Dr Steve Reynolds, Dundee Uni, b) £950/year for a £14k investment, Sunday Times Money section, last week. The feed-in tariff is index linked, and tax free. When you factor in these, the payback period falls.

Dave,
The payback time for my hypothetical domestic British PV solar system was 6 years, when I used the Cashback Calculator provided by energysavingtrust.org.uk
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Cashback-Calculator

I entered that I was going to produce 7300 kWh/year (maximum potential 2kW per hour from my 18m2 PV solar panels) from an under 4kW retrofit which I was going to install between 15th July 2009 and March 2012, and that it was going to cost me £20,000 to install the system and I wasn't taking out a loan, and I would be in the house most of the time during the daytime so I was only going to export 25% of the electricity I generated.

And it came back saying that they would pay me 41.3 pence per kW for 25 years, I would generate a gross profit of £3,570 p.a. the payback time was 6 years and the lifetime benefit would be £85,672.

The gross profit was made up of:
Income from generation tariff = £3,015
Income from export (they pay an extra 3 pence per kWh)=£55
Fuel bill savings = £500
Total = £3,570

I think this new system of paying out as you go like this (Feed-in Tariffs) only started on 1st April 2010. Before this they used to give you a grant. And it's the electricity companies that pay you the money.

It is of course only an estimate, because for all they know my roof might collapse and the solar panels might all get smashed up, although I believe they do specify that you have to use a registered installer who will presumably survey the roof first.

Their phone number is 08450 767634

Ally

Using the online calculator I came up with the following:
Assuming that the that the installation starts operating this year and they are gong to install 255 of Sunways SM 210U's rated at 240 Wp then the "Projected plant size" should be 61.2 kWp which results in a feed-in tariff of CHF 0.0599/kWh a surplus of 68'000 kWh would give them a guaranteed income (not allowing for the drop off in performance) of CHF 40'052 p.a. or CHF 1'001'300 over 25 years.

If on the other hand if they had chosen to build a conventional lift, then the electricity bill would be CHF 2'921.60 p.a. / CHF 73'040.00 over 25 years, assuming that the tariff will remain at CHF 0.1328/kWh which of course is not guaranteed.

The lift has a vertical range of 131m from 1644m up to 1775m.

There seems to be a photovoltaic boom in Grisons at the moment, earlier this week St. Antönien (450 inhabitants) announced that it had commissioned a study on the feasibility of mounting solar panels on the avalanche barriers above the village. It is estimated that there is the potential to produce 3.5 megawatts, enough to supply 1200 households. This would be by far the largest installation to date in CH. Apparently Switzerland has 500km of avalanche barriers 200km of which are thought to be located at suitable sites, the estimated total potential is 56 megawatts, enough to supply 20'000 households.

For those of you trying to work out the viability of an installation of your own, this program might be of interest: http://www.velasolaris.com/vs2/index.php there are many others Google for: pv simulation software.

Thanks for the vela site, SwBp, although this is aimed at company level. It does show a good analytical approach.