J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by SwingBeep

The prices listed on the Zermatt website are for non-residents, after obtaining proof of residence (Einheimischenausweis) you will be entitled to a substantial discount.

An alternative to going via Milan Central would be to take the bus from Malpensa Terminal 1 to Domodossola 1hr 20min €11,50 (reservation required) http://www.comazzibus.com/eng_index.php and from there the train to Zermatt (change in Brig). You could also take a bus or taxi to Gallarate (a station on the Milan - Brig line 11km east of Malpensa) and get a train from there.

I live down in the Rhone valley.

Zermatt certainly isn't cheap especially accommodation, for the price of a 2 bedroomed flat in Zermatt you could buy large detached house almost anywhere else in the region.

One thing that might not go down well with Mrs Tino is that lots of Swiss apartments aren't equipped with a washing machine or the plumbing to install one. There is often a communal laundry room on the ground floor the "Waschküche" that is shared by all the residents in the block. There is usually a timetable on the wall detailing when you can do your washing which may be half a day per week or perhaps a full day once a fortnight. Don't even think about washing on a Sunday! This is sometimes a deal breaker, tread carefully.

Congratulations Tino! Welcome to Oberwallis.

Moving to Switzerland is quite straightforward these days, especially if your company is organising the permits and taking care of the move. In order to drive from Täsch to Zermatt the removal company should obtain a permit from the police station in Visp and your belongings may have to be transferred to an electric vehicle in Spiss.

You will need to organise some health insurance (your employer should pay for your accident insurance) there is an outline of the system, together with money saving tips and a premium calculator here: http://www.vermoegenszentrum.ch/Privatkunden/Pensionierung-planen/Tipps---Infos/Dossier--Die-drei-Saulen/1--Saule/Krankenversicherungen

I would also get an Air Zermatt (or Rega) rescue card SFr 70 for a couple http://www.air-zermatt.ch/air_zermatt_2007/content/index3_DE.php?content=DE056

Make sure you get an Einheimischenausweis from the Gemeinde Kanzlei http://gemeinde.zermatt.ch/ek/einheimischenausweis.html this entitles you to a discount on the price of lift tickets throughout the region and cheap tickets on the MGB Bahn.

I found this book quite useful http://www.survivalbooks.net/products/living-and-working-in-switzerland/ and there is also some useful info on the Swiss government website http://www.swissemigration.ch/index.html?lang=en

Woops, sorry about that! I entered 90'000 kWh which is clearly wrong. I have now corrected my previous post to avoid further embarrassment. It would make things easier if the "Projected plant size" box in the online calculator was labelled kWp instead of kW.

Whilst getting the getting the data for the panels from the Sunways web site I noticed that they have a free Excel based configuration application: Sunways Sundim 5.19, the download link is located on the left hand side under "System planning for plumbers" http://www.sunways.eu/en/products/configurator/

I have now found out that the lift is only 450m long.

AllyG
As Grisons averages 300 sunny days a year, the PV installation at Tenna is bound to be more efficient than one at your location (the more you put in the more you get out). There are reports that installations in Grissons and Valais produce 30-40% more electricity than equivalent installations in central Switzerland. This is where the tracking system comes in, it will enable installations in southern Europe to reach "Grid parity" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_parity and installations in northern Europe to be more efficient. Obviously the PV installations need to be on a larger scale than you plan. How about doing a deal with a major supermarket chain whereby they let you install third generation Solar Wings (the ones with the mirrors) in their car parks in exchange for a proportion of the amount of electricity produced and supplying the national grid with the rest at the feed-in tariff.

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.

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.

Hello everybody, I apologise in advance for the length of this my first post here, but as there seems to be considerable interest in Tenna's new solar ski lift http://www.solarskilift.ch/index.php I thought you might like some further information.

Tenna http://www.tenna.ch/index.php is a small village with 109 inhabitants located in the Safien valley http://www.safiental.ch/ in the Canton of Grissons in south east Switzerland. As it has only the one ski lift it can't really be considered to be a ski resort. The solar powered ski lift is to replace the current one that was bought second hand 40 years ago which has to be replaced as there are no longer any spare parts for the gearbox http://www.solarskilift.ch/katalog_detail.php?auswahl=8&idp=2

The design of the solar module tracking system is based on research carried out by Prof Franz Baumgartner at Zurich University https://home.zhaw.ch/~bauf/ The solar modules are manufactured by Solar Wings AG info@solar-wings.li using solar panels manufactured by Sunways AG http://www.sunways.eu/en/ The lift and solar module cable system are being built by Bartholet Maschinenbau AG (BMF) http://www.bmf-ag.ch/ with design and engineering work being carried out by PAMAG Engineering AG http://www.pamag.ch/index.php This document (in English) gives an overview of the system http://www.bmf-ag.ch/media/SolarWings.pdf

Although most of the web sites listed above are in German it should be possible for non German speakers to get some information from them using Google translate http://translate.google.com/#