Three-quarters of Switzerland’s electricity is renewable

In 2018: 74% - more precisely, 66% from large hydroelectric power plants and about 8.4% from photovoltaics, wind, small hydroelectric plants and biomass. 19% derives, however, from nuclear power and almost 3% from waste and fossil sources. The data was published on the Confederation website. For 4% of the electricity supplied, the origin and composition are not verifiable (2018: 6%). From 2020 electricity will no longer be allowed to come from an unverifiable origin, large consumers are increasingly resorting to indigenous nuclear energy.

Data on the electricity mix distributed in Switzerland by electricity suppliers is collected annually and published in the “Electricity Labelling” cockpit at www.electricity-label.ch. From 2018 there was a general electricity labelling obligation declaring its origin; this means that the so-called ‘gray energy’ will still be allowed in some exceptional cases and up to the supply year 2020. In most neighbouring states there is no provision for guarantees of origin for electricity produced by power plants. Switzerland has introduced the so-called replacement guarantee. From now on, electricity produced from coal abroad will be declared as such and no longer be referred to as ‘gray energy’. Between 2018 and 2019 the percentage of electricity produced was from coal imported - thanks to these replacement guarantees this has halved to 0.5 per cent. The data published today referring to 2019 are configured as follows:

- 66 % of the electricity supplied in 2019 came from large hydroelectric plants (same as in 2018: 66%); and as in 2018, 76 % of hydroelectricity was of Swiss origin;

- 19.1% (2018: 17.3%) of the electricity supplied came from nuclear power plants ; the percentage is lower than that of nuclear energy in the Swiss production mix (35%). Like last year, the atomic energy supplied was mainly produced in Switzerland:

- 4.3% (2018: 6.3%) of the electricity came from non-verifiable energy carriers . Starting from January 2018, the obligation to declare non-homologable energy carriers is in force, with the exception of multi-year supply contracts signed before November 1, 2017, (for the latter, a transition period is allowed up to the year of supply 2020). As expected, thanks to energy labelling the percentage of ‘gray energy’ claims is falling. Electricity-intensive companies now provide so-called replacement guarantees to declare electricity of fossil and nuclear origin purchased on the European market without the related guarantees of origin (see above).

- The percentage of new renewable energy carriers (solar, wind, biomass and small hydroelectric power plants) continues to increase and went from 7.85 % (2018) to 8.4 % in 2019. Of this share, 95 % was produced in Switzerland and three quarters of production were incentivised through the system of remuneration for the injection of electricity.

- only a small part of the electricity supplied in 2019 came from fossil energy carriers (2%, 2018: 1.7%).

Mix of production and mix distributed by suppliers do not coincide

In Switzerland, around 56.4 % of electricity is produced from hydro power, 35.2% from nuclear energy, 2.6% from fossil carriers and almost 6% from new renewable energies (= mix Swiss production 2019). However, final consumers are not only supplied with electricity produced in Switzerland: our country in fact has intense trade exchanges with foreign countries, exporting and importing energy. For this reason, the Swiss production mix does not coincide with the average composition of the electricity supplied (mix distributed by suppliers).

To achieve greater transparency regarding the mix distributed by each supplier, this allows consumers to consciously choose a particular product, Swiss electricity companies have been required by law since 2005 to declare the origin and composition of the energy they supply. Their declaration is retroactive, in the sense that it is based on the data of the previous calendar year. Since 2006 these data must be disclosed to all consumers through bills and since 2013, they have also been published on the internet platform www.etichinetto-elettricita.ch.