Swiss households braced for rising energy costs

Electricty prices will continue to rise in Switzerland. Keystone / Alessandro Della Bella

Electricity prices will rise sharply in Switzerland next year. A medium-sized household is likely to pay around 18% more in 2024 compared to the current year, according to calculations by the Federal Electricity Commission (Elcom).   

That adds up to more than CHF200 ($226) in extra payments.

A typical household will pay 32.14 centimes per kilowatt hour for basic services over the course of next year. This corresponds to an increase of 4.94 centimes per kilowatt hour or 222 francs over the whole year, as Elcom announced to the media in Bern on Tuesday.

There are likely to be significant local differences. This is mainly due to differences in the proportion of domestic production compared to buying in from foreign sources wrote Elcom. A similar picture emerges for small and medium-sized companies in Switzerland where network costs and energy prices are also increasing.

The calculation is based on the electricity tariffs of around 600 Swiss network operators for 2024. The tariffs are made up of charges for grid usage, energy costs, community levies and the grid surcharges. All these areas will see price hikes with the exception of the network surcharge, which will remain the same.

According to Elcom, there are several reasons why the tariffs will rise again in many places in 2024. Firstly, a significant part of the procurement for 2023 was made on the futures market before energy prices increased.

Secondly, the costs of the winter reserve are passed on to the end consumer via a surcharge on grid usage. And thirdly, the network usage tariffs are rising to cover interest payments on capital being raised by the Federal Department for the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications.

The 2024 tariffs of the individual municipalities and network operators can now be accessed and compared on the Elcom electricity price website. A little more than 1% of network operators did not submit the data on time. It is therefore currently not possible to check tariffs in these regions. Due to the small size of these areas, Elcom does not expect to see a significant change in the overall results pf future tariff rates.

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