{"id":30199,"date":"2026-08-06T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/?p=30199"},"modified":"2026-08-05T15:51:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T13:51:05","slug":"switzerlands-electricity-shortage-solution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/switzerlands-electricity-shortage-solution\/","title":{"rendered":"Switzerland’s Electricity Shortage: Which Solution Will Really Work?"},"content":{"rendered":"
The winter months remain particularly critical. Four technologies are under consideration, each with its own cost, pace, and drawbacks. <\/span><\/div>\n\n

Switzerland is once again debating the future of its electricity supply\u2014and this time, the discussion is intense. The VSE Electricity Supply Index<\/a> shows a score of only 82 out of a target of 100 points for 2035, and just 69 points for 2050. The winter months remain particularly critical. Four technologies are under consideration, each with its own cost, timeline, and drawbacks. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Hydropower currently generates 37 terawatt-hours per year and is Switzerland\u2019s most important source of electricity. Sixteen expansion projects are expected to add two terawatt-hours of winter electricity by 2040, for example by raising the Grimsel Lake dam<\/a> by 23 meters or constructing the new Trift reservoir<\/a> with a capacity of 85 million cubic meters. The downside: lengthy permitting processes. For the Waldemme power plant<\/a>, the permitting process took nearly twenty years, while construction took one and a half. <\/p>\n\n

Nuclear Energy: The Door Is Open, but It Won’t Be Relevant Until After 2050<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n

On June 19, 2026, Parliament lifted the ban on the construction of new nuclear power plants; a referendum against the bill is already underway. A new plant would cost around 13 billion Swiss francs, but European reference projects such as Hinkley Point<\/a> show cost overruns of more than double that amount. Even in the best-case scenario, it will take decades before electricity starts flowing. Nuclear power therefore plays no role in addressing the winter supply gap of the 2030s. <\/p>\n\n

Wind and Solar: Fast and Popular, but Rarely in the Right Place<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n

Wind energy currently accounts for only 0.2 terawatt-hours, but is expected to grow to 7 terawatt-hours by 2050, with approximately 1,200 turbines. Surveys show broad support, but specific projects often fail due to local opposition. Photovoltaics is growing the fastest and already accounts for 15 percent of electricity, though it generates power primarily in the summer. For winter electricity, alpine ground-mounted systems are needed, such as those in the Val d\u2019Anniviers<\/a>, where 20 to 25 million Swiss francs supply around 4,400 households in the winter\u2014which is significantly cheaper than achieving the same result with rooftop systems, which, according to a BKW study, would cost 65 billion Swiss francs. <\/p>\n\n

Norway Shows How It Can Be Done Better<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n

One country that Switzerland often cites as a role model is Norway. Both countries rely on hydropower, but Norway uses it to meet nearly 90 percent of its electricity needs and is also Europe\u2019s largest electricity exporter. The key difference lies in storage capacity: Norway\u2019s reservoirs hold about 82 terawatt-hours, up to 70 percent of the country\u2019s annual consumption. The Swiss and Austrian Alpine reservoirs combined amount to only about 12 terawatt-hours. Norway was able to build its large reservoirs as early as the 1960s and 1970s, before today\u2019s resistance to landscape alterations emerged, and also has undersea cables to Germany and the United Kingdom that export surplus electricity and import it during shortages. Switzerland no longer has this advantage: its best sites are largely already in use, new projects such as Trift or Grimsel will only generate a fraction of that scale, and an electricity agreement with the EU that would secure trade remains unresolved. <\/p>\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/h6>\n\n

Hydropower remains the most effective option for winter, but faces geographical limitations. Wind power is popular, but individual projects often fail. Solar power is growing the fastest, but requires controversial Alpine installations for winter. Nuclear energy is once again an option, but only for the second half of the century. Norway demonstrates that a hydropower-based energy supply works when storage capacity and grid connectivity are adequate\u2014two areas where Switzerland ranks lowest, according to the VSE Index. <\/p>\n\n

Binci Heeb<\/p>\n\n

See also: Power Shortages\u2014What Should Switzerland and Insurance Companies Do Now?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Switzerland is once again debating the future of its electricity supply\u2014and this time, the discussion is intense. The VSE Electricity Supply Index shows a score of only 82 out of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5100,5134],"tags":[14265,5541,14257,3226,14262,14189,4972,2611,14258,14260,14190,14264,14261,13761,14259],"class_list":["post-30199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current","category-general","tag-electricity-agreement","tag-hydropower","tag-power-shortage","tag-referendum","tag-repeal","tag-solar","tag-solution","tag-switzerland","tag-the-future-of-electricity","tag-trift-reservoir","tag-val-danniviers","tag-waldemme-power-plant","tag-wind","tag-winter-season","ownarticle"],"acf":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":"The winter months remain particularly critical. Four technologies are under consideration, each with its own cost, pace, and drawbacks. ","source_text":"","source_url":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30200,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30199\/revisions\/30200"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebrokernews.ch\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}