Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by cogman10 44 days ago
Wind would be particularly effective in Switzerland and it's fast to deploy. The swiss grid has less than 1% wind which was pretty shocking to me. It seems like Switzerland has a particularly bad renewable story for an EU nation.
3 comments
tribaal 44 days ago
Wind is not that developed in Switzerland because it's not actually that great of a situation... We have a lot of steep mountains which make building wind farms a real challenge, and the flat plains in between have "meh" levels of wind. And a very strong NIMBY mentality. We do have some projects but those are more exception than rule.

The really awesome wind spots are more the coastal or offshore farms, which... well... we can't have (no access to the sea does that to you).

Solar is really really booming right now however, many houses take themselves off grid completely. Mine is a net producer for example.

link
palata 44 days ago
> Mine is a net producer for example.

All year? And do you mean you "inject" more than you "pull", or do you mean that you can live without ever pulling anything from the grid?

Because "being a net producer overall" doesn't say that it would work in practice if everyone was doing the same, right?

link
tribaal 43 days ago
Almost the latter - I can almost live without pulling anything from the grid. The huge caveat being that my system is way oversized for a normal house, since my building is multi-use (including commercial tenants who obviously only need power during the day). I am definitely injecting more during the summer though, of course.

I have a 40kWp system and a 20kWh battery.

link
calvinmorrison 44 days ago
It's not in the EU. It is part of the Schengen Agreement.
link
jsnell 44 days ago
It's not an EU nation.
link
cogman10 44 days ago
Oh wow, I didn't realize that! That's crazy, basically everyone that borders them are EU members. I was also under the impression (but haven't checked) that it was pretty easy to cross the swiss border both into and out of the EU.
link
Arodex 44 days ago
Switzerland unilaterally got out of negotiations with the EU, which also dealt with energy grid coordination.

As such, as of now, the EU can shut down Switzerland without warning if the grid is overloaded and they need to avoid a blackout.

link
estebank 44 days ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schengen_Area
link