Condition of electricity transmission grid worse than previously assumed
Published: Wednesday, Nov 22nd 2023, 11:40
Updated At: Wednesday, Nov 22nd 2023, 11:43
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According to the national grid company Swissgrid, the condition of the electricity transmission grid in Switzerland is worse than previously assumed. As a result, immediate measures will have to be taken for around 25 percent of the Swissgrid grid over the next five to ten years, as announced by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) on Wednesday.
Planning approval procedures would also have to be started in parallel to the immediate measures. The number of projects is therefore expected to multiply.
In addition to maintenance, the transmission grid also urgently needs to be expanded, the SFOE announced. In order to ensure the secure, powerful and efficient operation of the Swiss electricity system, existing and impending bottlenecks must be eliminated. Finally, there is the gradual switch from centralized to decentralized production capacities resulting from the Energy Strategy 2050.
With the Federal Act on the Conversion and Expansion of the Electricity Grids, new conditions for the faster expansion of the electricity grids have applied since 2019. This has not "significantly" accelerated the approval process, as the press release explains further. Many line projects in Swissgrid's transmission grid would still currently take around 15 years to complete.
Examine measures for acceleration
At its meeting, the Federal Council therefore instructed the Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications (DETEC) to examine measures to speed up the approval process in greater depth and to submit a proposal with the necessary amendments at the legislative level by the end of March 2024 and at the ordinance level by the end of November 2024.
According to the SFOE, this includes, for example, the optimization of the internal federal procedure and adjustment processes for projects in the sectoral plan for transmission lines, legal requirements for the choice of technology between overhead lines or cables, the waiver of a sectoral plan procedure for the replacement or renovation of existing lines on existing routes or the waiver of planning approval for low-voltage distribution grids in construction zones.
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