Ski Lift Running on Solar Power

Brucie wrote:I have been following this topic with interest.

Would a diesel powered motor not be cheaper and more efficient? :?:

Brucie, do you have any statistics to support the diesel alternative?

I am not in anyway connected to Tenna or the Swiss tourist information office, I just read Bandit's first post and out of curiosity Googled using the following search strings: tenna site:ch and "solar wings" site:ch.

The system is rather clever isn't it and if successful will hopefully make it easier for other small to medium sized lift companies to finance the replacement of their aging lifts. In the Swiss TV report one of the inventors stated that the system can also be installed on existing lifts so I don't see any reason why the large areas would not install it (providing its financially viable) Zermatt certainly has the resources and the existing lifts at Sunnegga and Gornergrat run from west to east and are not overshadowed, it might also "green" their image a bit.

The idea to build the solar ski lift came from Felicia Montalta http://www.suedostschweiz.ch/newsticker/index.cfm?id=25249&newsRessort=&newsRegion=&newsSearch=&startrow=1 she is leading a project to improve tourism in the Safiental. The existing lift is approx. 500m long, the cost of a conventional lift was estimated at CHF 750k the solar lift will cost an additional CHF 420k, total CHF 1.17m Tenna has budgeted CHF 1.25m, they can raise about 2/3 of this themselves (notice there is no mention of a bank loan, Swiss banks consider ski lifts to be too high a risk) and are hoping to raise the shortfall of CHF 450k through sponsorship, a donation of CHF 1k will entitle you to have your name entered on a plaque at the bottom station and you will no doubt receive an invitation to the official opening when the lift will be blessed by the local priest, well you wouldn't want to ride on a lift that hadn't been blessed would you? This will no doubt be followed by an "Apero" in the Pistenbeizli http://www.pistenbeizli.ch/

AllyG
90'000 kWh is only an estimate and is presumably based on the solar energy available at Tenna, your assumed hours of operation are way out, see page 2 in this pdf: http://www.tenna.ch/cms_grund_anz/upload/29_100_Winter-Info%2009-10f.pdf yes it does close for lunch! The night time operation complicates things somewhat. Switzerland uses "cost-covering feed-in remuneration" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed-in_tariff to pay suppliers of renewable energy, the amount paid per kWh depends on how the installation is classified and it is reduced by 8% every year, there is an online calculator here: http://www.swissgrid.ch/power_market/renewable_energies/registration_crf/photovoltaics/photovoltaics_calc?set_language=en don't forget that the output of the cells diminishes with time.

bandit wrote:

Brucie wrote:I have been following this topic with interest.

Would a diesel powered motor not be cheaper and more efficient? :?:

Brucie, do you have any statistics to support the diesel alternative?

I'm afraid not Bandit, I am relying on purely anecdotal evidence.

Perhaps Ally could tell us how many brake horse power would be required and an average diesel consumption rate based on energy required for an uplift rate of say, 200 people per hour?

Brucie wrote:I have been following this topic with interest.

Would a diesel powered motor not be cheaper and more efficient? :?:

Brucie,
I'm glad to hear you're interested in this as well :D

SwingBeep - thanks, I am still thinking about your contribution (and trying to translate the German!).

A drag lift system powered by a diesel generator, or electricity from the national grid, would be much cheaper to build. But, in energy terms, the solar system should be able to pay for itself in about 6 years (less maybe I haven't been able to see their exact figures for this), and after this the energy produced will be completely carbon neutral. Whereas a diesel generator would continue to run on diesel - a fossil fuel.

However, I think the point is, as I said before, that the price of electricity produced by the PV solar wings and sold to the national grid will be subsidised through the Swiss national scheme (as detailed in the link below), so that it should be able to run at a profit to the community of Tenna that will own the lift, after a few years.

http://www.bfe.admin.ch/energie/00588/00589/00644/index.html?lang=en&msg-id=28572

It seems that all the Swiss electricity consumers are currently paying an extra 0.45 cents per kilowatt hour in order to fund the extra prices paid for electricity from 'green' or renewable sources.

I haven't been able to find out yet how much they will get for the electricity they sell, but I think it is probably about four times the going rate for conventionally produced electricity (the same as it is now here in the U.K. for new systems).

And the reason for this is that Switzerland wants to increase the amount of power they produce from renewable sources to 10% of the total, presumably both to slow down global warming and also to make them more independant of fossil fuels (which are running out and likely to become very expensive and hard to obtain). They also seem to have environmental problems with their hydroelectric power.

The costings I obtained for a hypothetical PV system on our own properties (from the energysavingtrust.org) reckoned that for a 2.2 Kw system, requiring 18 metres squared of solar panels, we would be into profit after 6 years after an initial outlay of £20,000- with an annual income of £3,570 guaranteed for 25 years. I imagine the figures are probably something similar for the Swiss system at Tenna allowing for the differenc in magnitude of the system.

So, what I am trying to say, is that the new solar powered lift would eventually be a 'cash cow' for the Tenna community, as well as a ski lift!

Ally

AllyG wrote:
So, what I am trying to say, is that the new solar powered lift would eventually be a 'cash cow' for the Tenna community, as well as a ski lift!

I can't see any maintenance costs in the rationale presented so far. I expect a solar system, with all those panels will be expensive to maintain.

Bandit,
I thought about that as well. The articles I have read on solar panels say they don't require any maintenance and that they seem to be lasting longer (up to 30 years) than expected (20 years). However, I agree with you that the fancy tilting mechanism is bound to need maintenance, but since it's a newly designed system I don't suppose they know yet how much it will cost, and it may even be covered by a guarantee covered by the manufacturers.

I have had a go with SwingBeep's Swiss price calculator. I pretended to have a 2 kW PV system ready to go in March next year and it said I would get 49.0 Rp/KWh. What is an Rp? Do you think maybe I got a bit carried away and pretended to be in India or something? :D :D

Ally

Ally, I wonder if Rp is for Rappen which is the Swiss German word for Cent.

bandit wrote:Ally, I wonder if Rp is for Rappen which is the Swiss German word for Cent.

Thanks Bandit.
100 Swiss Francs seems to be equivalent to £61 at the moment, so that makes the hypothetical electricity I'm selling worth 29.9 pence per kilowatt, which doesn't sound very much. Maybe it's because the pound is down at the moment. And I don't know how much normal electricity costs in Switzerland.

Brucie - why are we reverting to horsepower? I had thought about trying to calculate how much power was required by the ski lift using kinetic energy calculations, but I didn't attempt it because I don't know how long the lift is, how fast it moves, the vertical distance involved, the value to use for the friction of the skis on the snow, or the number of people travelling on it at any one time and their average weight. So I didn't bother. Once upon a time I used to be quite good at these sort of calculations. And I did in fact coach my older daughter through her A Level physics, and my younger daughter has just asked me for some help with her A Level maths mechanics revision.

Ally