J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by AllyG

Dave Mac wrote:This is an interesting piece of engineering. To understand it, look at Swingbeeps http://www.bmf-ag.ch/media/SolarWings.pdf
Scroll to page 13. The Rh pic shows the support cable and the tracking cable, ie, a motor pulls at one end, and the panels change angle, in a single plane. At 100% sunnyness, the output is 200 Kw for a 1Kw motor power. When it is snowing, I suspect that the motor pulls the tracking cable such that the panels are lying in a vertical plane.
By using cable supports, the cost of individual foundations are avoided

Dave,
I got that article to load okay this morning. I agree, the motor and mechanics that drives the tracking device is very clever, but it's not actually describing the individual system for the ski lift at Tenna - it's another one. So I still don't know how much power the Tenna one is producing or consuming.

But I did get the bit that says that by tracking the sun with two axes they get 20 - 35% more energy than by using a fixed installation. And it also says that they have sensors for time, wind, snow and irradiance and they can change the rotation angle by +/- 45 degrees. So, when it gets very snowy the solar wings can move to stop the snow sitting on top of them.

I hope SwingBeep gets back to us with some more information on this. I'd like to know how much money they will get for their 'green' electricity in Tenna, and how it works out financially. If there is a big subsidy for this sort of electricity we may see more solar powered lifts around.

Ally

Thanks SwingBeep,
That was very helpful. Are you connected with Tenna, or the Swiss tourist information office? I sent a couple of e-mails explaining that we were discussing this on J2ski.com in the hope that someone would join in with our discussion.

Thanks for telling us that this lift is the only one that Tenna has, no wonder I couldn't find Tenna listed under ski resorts!

I have had some problems with understanding google's translation, but I have managed to pick up a few things. Such as, I think the total cost of the new solar drag lift is 1,250,000 Swiss Francs which the currency converter I was using said was equal to £748,000. So the new lift is very expensive, and it seems Tenna is still looking for new sponsors to pay for part of it. There are, apparently 85 sections of solar wing, and 255 individual modules.

Sunways, the manufacturer of the photovoltaic system says that each module is 1.66 square metres and weighs 24 Kg and has an output of 240 Wp (Wp seems to stand for peak number of Watts).

I think the figure of 90,000 kWh for the solar system must be the energy produced during a whole year, and 22,000 kWh must be how much energy the lift uses when it's running. So, if the lift is running for 8 hours per day for 5 months that means it requires 18 kW of energy per hour to run. And if the solar panels are operating for 12 hours per day for 365 days per year then they must be producing an average of 20 kW of energy per hour. Which means that the solar cells are only operating at 30% of their maximum efficiency (since each panel is supposed to be 240 Wp and there are 255 of them).

I couldn't get the English version to load, so I still don't know how long the lift is.

Ally

Since the man who collided with you was also hurt (according to your account) I would have thought there was some chance that he went to a medical centre for treatment. If the police were involved they could possibly trace him through this, as I'm sure all centres have to keep records, the same as in this country, and you would of course have the approximate time of the accident and the date.

Best of luck with getting compensation for this, and I hope your recovery progresses well,

Ally

I got an e-mail back from myswitzerland.com. This is what it said:

We thank you for your request.

Please contact directly Safiental tourism office for that question.

http://www.safiental.ch/index.cfm?id=55

The site is only in German.

I have sent them an e-mail instead, but I'm not sure I've sent it to the right place, because the website is indeed all in German :roll:

If anyone is interested, we have a new green subsidy scheme here which applies to solar electricity and I am trying to work it out. Apparently the energy companies will pay 41.3 pence per unit for energy produced in this way (Feed-in Tariffs), even if we use it ourselves, and if we sell it back to the grid we get another 3 pence per unit on top of that, for a guaranteed period of 25 years. It seems this will pay for the panels and the installation in about 6 years. But there must be a snag to this somewhere. It sounds much too good to be true. I will do some more research.

Ally

Bandit,
I am doing something that will add value to my life, thanks :D

I am considering which new form of eco-friendly technology to add to our various businesses. And researching photo-voltaic solar cells is very interesting. So far it has only confirmed what I already thought - that there are better, cheaper, more efficient new technologies out there. But when they have improved the PV system, I might be interested. The hot water type of solar panels seem much more efficient.

Thanks Pablo, and it's okay Brooksy, I have an older daughter much the same age as Pablo and she's always trying to teach me how to suck eggs as well :D

I am very fond of Pablo (and my daughter!). And they are both definitely better than me when it comes to things like using Excel or designing web pages, or, in Pablo's case ski-ing :lol: I am very grateful for their help at times, when it's something I'm totally out of date with. And I think it's very nice that on this forum there are many people of different ages and with different skills and knowledge to contribute to these discussions.

And I can take a leg-pull as well as anyone else :D

Pablo, I was actually interested to see if you could find the e-mail address of the resort's tourist information office directly, because I had failed. I can do it indirectly quite easily, in various ways, like phoning that editor again. I am just amazed that a resort that none of us seem to be able to find anything about is splashing out on this very fancy drag lift. As someone else said, it would be nice to know how long this drag lift is etc. etc.

I will have another go at it on Monday :D

Thanks everyone,

Ally

Pablo Escobar wrote:Why don't you just email the ski resort? They would be able to answer all your questions without the mindless speculation.

Pablo, what a good idea :idea: :D

What's their e-mail address?

That is an awful story. I feel really sorry for you.

Surely this is a police matter? I thought it was up to the French police to trace people in these sort of cases? The ESF instructor should be able to give a description of the man.

And yes, I would sue ESF, because I am quite sure the instructor is also responsible.

Ally

Has anyone managed to understand the German in the video yet?

I still don't think it's a financially viable project. I mean, according to the article the solar panels are producing 90,000 kWh, the lift/s are using 66,000 kWh, so they only have 24,000 kWh spare to sell. Supposing they only got 10 pence per unit (kW) for this, they'd only get £2,400 from selling the surplus back to the grid.

And even this doesn't make sense, because I would have thought these were only the winter figures and they'd have a lot more to sell back in the summer, because I don't imagine the drag lift would be working.

Anyway, I don't know how much that fancy set up is costing the lift company, but I bet it's a huge pile of money because not only are solar panels very expensive, but also they've got to have extra strong pylons holding up the lift because the panels are so heavy, and they've got that very clever mechanism to tilt the panels over which would have to be maintained as well.

So, unless they're getting a huge 'green' subsidy in some way, such as a much higher price for the electricity they sell back to the grid, a large grant or an interest free loan, I don't see how it can pay for itself at all, or indeed where they're getting the money to pay for it in the first place.

I mean, drag lifts are cheap to run. So that a 50 kW one at 10 pence per kW would only cost £5 an hour to run.

I am all in favour of environmentally friendly improvements in ski resorts (and everywhere else) but this does seem more like a publicity stunt. I reckon they'd do more to look after the environment and conserve energy if they did something very simple like put thermostats in all the individual rooms in hotels, chalets and apartments. We had to leave our window open all night in our apartment in Courchevel because there was no way of turning the heating down and we were roasting hot.

I had a look on the internet and apparently PV solar panels require 1000 kW hours of energy to manufacture each metre squared of panel (although I believe this figure is reducing), so it would probably be several years before they even 'paid back' the energy used to manufacture them.

Ally