Switzerland joins six countries in CO2-free power production pledge

Most electricity produced in Switzerland is fossil fuel free but Switzerland also consumes a lot of electricity from abroad. Keystone/gaetan Bally

Swiss Energy Minister Albert Rösti and his counterparts from six European Union countries have pledged to get all of their electricity from carbon free sources by 2035.

Swiss electricity production is already nearly CO2-free. Only 2% of the electricity produced in Switzerland last year came from fossil fuels. The fact that Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg now also want to switch to CO2-free electricity generation by 2035 will have advantages for Switzerland, said Energy Minister Albert Rösti.

+ Swiss electricity providers face huge challenges amid supply crunch

A significant proportion of the electricity consumed in Switzerland comes from abroad. “The phase-out of fossil fuels only makes a difference if the imported electricity is also fossil fuel-free,” said Rösti. “In this respect, it is important for Switzerland.”

In the medium term, the goal of CO2-free electricity production by 2035 in the seven countries will mean that more electricity will come from nuclear power plants again. “New nuclear power plants are being planned in many countries,” said Rösti. This is an important form of energy for decarbonisation, he added.

Switzerland has decided to phase out nuclear energy and that needs to be respected for the time being, said Rösti. But the Brussels agreement means that nuclear energy will remain important for Switzerland for a long time to come.

“We assume that the existing nuclear power plants will run longer than the planned 50 years. We are now assuming at least 60 years,” he said. It won’t be possible to achieve the goal of carbon emissions free electricity without nuclear power plants. “We won’t be able to add renewables quickly enough. That takes time.”

The joint agreement has another plus point for the Energy Minister. The seven states pledge to plan power grids together and support each other in electricity storage. Switzerland can count on its neighboring countries – even if no electricity agreement is reached with the European Union.

“The willingness to work with Switzerland is taken for granted,” said Rösti. After yesterday’s meeting in Brussels, he is convinced that Switzerland will remain important as an electricity hub and with its large storage capacities for the other six countries.

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. You can find them here. 

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].