Switzerland's Federal Council has introduced new amendments to the country's energy law to further support solar energy deployment. The new provisions include a new auction scheme for solar projects above 150 kW in size and a bonus for PV installations at high-altitude sites across the Alps.
“For the first time, auctions will be held for large photovoltaic installations,” the Federal Council said in a statement. “The aid will be awarded to producers offering a given amount of solar energy at the lowest price. These auctions are intended for photovoltaic installations that are not intended for self-consumption, such as those built on hangars or barns.”
It said that PV systems deployed on infrastructure assets such as dam walls and noise barriers often have higher costs and will probably not be competitive in the auction. The new auction mechanism will replace the country's feed-in tariff scheme, which expires at the end of this year.
“Special auctions can be carried out for this type of installation in order to allow their construction,” said the Federal Council.
By the end of December, Switzerland had reached a cumulative installed solar power capacity of 3.65 GW. This was enough to cover around 6% of its total electricity demand. The Federal Office of Energy recently revealed that the country deployed around 683 MW of PV in 2021. Trade group Swissolar said this positive trend will continue in 2022, with predictions for between 850 MW and 900 MW of annual capacity additions.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
1 comment
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.