Lead battery and solar panel combination system powers weather station in Alps

At 3,360 meters high, a modern new centre is being established for mountaineers and meteorologists on the vast Ruitor glacier in the Italian Alps, powered by advanced lead batteries.

The sophisticated bivouac, designed by Progetto CMR, will be installed on the glacier in the spring of 2022, dedicated to the memory of Edoardo Camardella, a young mountaineer who lost his life on Mont Blanc.

The structure will have a large glass wall that looks out towards the Alps’s largest peak. Credit: FIAMM Energy Technology S.p.A.

The infrastructure will be powered by FIAMM Energy Technology’s 12FHC175 lead batteries, in combination with a solar panel system which allows the building to be ‘energetically autonomous’, according to Alessandro Cane, Service Operations Manager at FIAMM Energy Technology S.p.A.

The bivouac includes a weather station, with a 360° incorporated webcam, the highest in the Graian Alps and one of the highest in Europe.

Advanced lead batteries are highly efficient in both extremely hot and cold weather conditions, one of the technology’s greatest advantages alongside safety and reliability.

Lead batteries are the technology of choice in some of the most impressive, challenging and remote locations worldwide – from Mt Everest to South America –  to power weather stations used for global climate change studies.