Swiss government increases incentives for geothermal power development

Swiss Feed-in-Tariff for geothermal power - 1 April 2019 (source: legislation)

Alexander Richter 1 Mar 2019

The Swiss government has implemented an amendment to feed-in-tariffs for solar PV and geothermal, with rates increasing for geothermal from $0.293 to 0.541/ kWh.

At its meeting on 27 February 2019, the Federal Council approved amendments to the Ordinance on the encouragement of renewable electricity generation and the Energy Ordinance . In particular, it adapts the rates of compensation for the injection and the one-off payment for photovoltaic installations and specifies the framework conditions applicable to the groupings of own consumption (RCP). The amendments will come into effect on April 1, 2019.

The amendments relate to the rates of renumeration applicable to (renewable energy) installations commissioned as of 1 April 2019. The amendments extend to injection compensation and single renumeration for PV installations, but also for injection compensation system for geothermal plants.

The rate of compensation (for geothermal) will be raised by 6.5 cents / kWh as of April 1, 2019, as recent cost data show that investment costs and costs are operation and maintenance are generally higher for installations of this type.

Source: Geothermie Suisse/ DETEC