Switzerland must accelerate the energy transition
Switzerland must greatly expand its domestic renewable energy production, otherwise it will miss its climate targets. This is shown by studies by the Federal Office of Energy. If it maintains its current policy, CO2 emissions will drop by just 30 percent by 2050.
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Switzerland has set itself less ambitious goals for the energy transition up to 2020 and is likely to achieve them. This is shown by the third monitoring report by the Federal Office of Energy ( SFOE ). After that, the new renewable energies achieved an electricity production of 4186 gigawatt hours in 2019. The SFOE writes in a press release that the target of 4400 gigawatt hours in 2020 is within reach. But if the guideline value of 11,400 gigawatt hours is to be achieved in 2035, the annual additions must amount to an average of 451 gigawatt hours, one and a half times as much as in the past decade.
The final energy consumption per capita is similar: the reduction target of minus 16 percent by 2020 compared to 2000 was already achieved in 2016. By 2019, minus 19.1 percent was achieved. But if the benchmark for 2035 of minus 43 percent is to be achieved, then the average annual decline would have to be minus 2.2 percent. In the past decade it was only minus 1.4 percent.
The Energy Perspectives 2050+ published at the same time by the SFOE came to the conclusion that if Switzerland continued with the existing practice, it would fall far short of its climate target in the long term. Switzerland has committed itself to reducing its CO2 emissions to net zero by 2050. But with a “keep it up” it comes to a reduction in CO2 emissions of 30 percent compared to 2020.
However, the Energy Perspectives 2050+ assume that Switzerland can achieve its climate target with the technologies that are already available or currently being developed. The investment requirement would be only 8 percent higher than a continuation of the previous practice, according to a BFE announcement . If the current practice were retained, a total of CHF 1,400 billion would have to be invested in energy infrastructure, systems, devices and vehicles by 2050. If the net zero climate target is to be achieved, it would be a good 1,500 billion Swiss francs.
