New electricity supply law for Switzerland coming in 2021
The Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) will draft an amendment to the Electricity Supply Act (StromVG) by the beginning of 2021. This is according to a media release from the Federal Council.
Strengthening the "renewables
Up to now, consumers of at least 100,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year have been able to freely choose their electricity supplier. The amendment is intended to make this possible for households and small businesses as well. These are also to be given the right to return from the free market to the basic supply.
Here, 100 percent renewable electricity from Swiss production is supplied by default, which strengthens renewables. Through this amendment to the StromVG, the Federal Council hopes to "strengthen decentralized electricity production and thus improve the integration of renewable energies into the electricity market".
The proposed revision of the Energy Act (EnG), on the other hand, is intended to provide the electricity industry with more planning security and investment incentives in order to expand domestic renewables. To this end, the previous guideline values for the expansion of renewables are to be declared binding expansion targets for 2035.
More flexible contributions for auctions
An expansion target is also to be defined for 2050. "In the future, new wind, small hydro and biogas plants as well as geothermal power plants should also be able to apply for investment contributions and thus also cover part of the planning costs," the Federal Council further informs. However, these will no longer receive feed-in tariffs from 2023.
The currently valid fixed one-time payments for photovoltaic systems are to be replaced by contributions that arise through auctions.
In the case of large-scale waterworks, the funding for investment contributions is to be doubled. "Particularly significant plants (large additional annual production, substantial storage expansion, important contribution to winter production) can also be given priority in the funding," says the Communication.
