And That’s a Big Deal for Our Energy Future!
Thirty years later, old-school solar panels are still delivering on their promise.
In the late 1980s, when Switzerland was just beginning to experiment with solar power, engineers bolted a few shiny panels onto rooftops, mountain stations, and even utility-scale farms. They probably didn’t expect those panels to still be humming along more than three decades later.
But that’s exactly what a new study shows. Researchers from Switzerland, Austria, and Germany tracked six photovoltaic systems installed between 1987 and 1993 across the country’s dramatically different climates — temperate valleys, snowy mountain huts, and high-altitude research stations perched above the clouds. After more than 30 years, those panels are still reliably producing electricity.
