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Comment by ramraj07 | Hacker News Reader

How does one get about starting a solar farm for commercial purposes? Do you have any guidelines or resources?

Hi. The most important step is permitting as it's a highly regulated industry. The rest is easier. Every jurisdiction has its own rules for permitting. Some govs want to push it more and make it easy (like Spain used to do it). Some don't need solar plants (like Switzerland). I heard Maryland in US is pushing it. I was planning to visit Maryland ministry of energy to learn more actually.

Why do you think Switzerland doesn't need solar plants? We're still in the middle of an energy crisis: While we have more than enough energy in spring and summer (lots of hydroelectric power plants), we don't have enough storage capacity to make it through winter with renewables alone. And plans to make an energy deal with the EU have failed so far.

Alpine solar power plants are a huge deal right now, and cause a lot of discussions. They provide big benefits over solar on rooftops in the valley, because they are usually above the fogline and provide better efficiency during winter.

This is the first alpine solar power plant that's fully operational since August: https://www.axpo.com/ch/en/about-us/energy-knowledge.detail.... It's mounted on a dam and thus had less issues with permissions (as it's mounted on an already existing structure with existing power infrastructure).

Here's an English article about two big planned projects in Gondo and Grengiols: https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/mountaintop-solar-farms-spark-t...

I had really wanted to setup a utility scale solar power plant in Switzerland and did some research and could not find a way to do it nor en example of it (except rooftop solar panels which is common). Switzerland is already energy independent (60% of electricity generation is hydro, 34% is nuclear). This is a great mix comparing to fossil sources in many countries. And mostly explains low inflation in the country I think.

For 20+ years I have wish we literally had just build one more nuclear plant, we could easily have done this and would be fine and independent by now. But sadly we have to investigate all these ideas instead of just going with a solution we know works and is literally just a matter of spending the money to solve the problem.

Relaying on EU is just a terrible idea.

I'm not necessarily against some things like these solar on a dam, but I wish we just look at the problem, picked a solution, took on the debt needed and comprehensively solved it in one project.

The referendum to shut down nuclear power plants would have shut down that new one too... but anyway my impression is that there are no recent nuclear plants built anywhere, are there?

There are nuclear plants built still. Finland just finished a new plant that produces a lot of electricity. South Korea just built a whole bunch of new plants in the UAE. There are plants building in UK, in the US, in China, in India. Finland is build more as well. France is planning to build more. Poland has just decided to make nuclear its way to get away from coal.

Nuclear isn't doing fantastic, but new reactors are still built.

Switzerland has now overthrown the idea to shot down the reactors and they will stay open for many years more. But we don't plan to build new reactors either.

Had we built a new one, I don't think we would have voted to shut it off.

We could also get in contact with GenIV companies and try to be world leading with some next generation reactor.

My approach would be to build 1 Gen3+ reactor such as APR-1400 or something like that we start to build as soon as possible.

Then we also plan on building GenIV reactor such Terrestrial Energy ISMR or Moltex Energy Stable Salt Reactor. Eventually when we actually want to replace our existing fleet, we build more of that type.

@panick21_ we should get to know each other. I'm in Switzerland too. I'm not an experienced HN writer. Is there a way to exchange our contact details privately here?

I own one of these too. Sounds like it might be similar location to ush, as I deal with snow, sheep, etc.

I got mine during my windfall cash earning years in big corp. Great economics for a large W2 earner: 30% funding from gov, 30% funding from immediate depreciation, and you can lever the rest. Infinite IRR.

There are a whole network of developers who package the deals and then match it with financing. I still can't believe every dentist in America doesn't own one of these....

The 2 biggest problems you'd want to solve for first are (a) who will buy the power("offtaker") and (b) where the solar project will be placed. If it's commercial, often it will be at the offtaker's location. There is a competitive industry competing for these customer already of course.

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