Swiss Federal Energy policy
On the way to the diversification

We still live in a fossil world. Over 80% of our total energy consumption are based on oil and natural gas. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases lead us to a change of the climate, by fine dust and Smallestparticles have health consequences. Serious are also our dependencies in consideration with the geographical situation of the fossil energy sources. Depending upon international conflicts the power supply thereby could be saliently endangered.


Terrestrial heat can be found everywhere

While everybody stares at the fossil energy reserves in the interior of the earth, which are going to an end, we only now recognize, the lasting and emission-free form of energy only lying beside it now, although this enormous potential exhibits. The terrestrial heat is one of our most important energy sources of the future! It keeps increasing meaning in the context of the strategy for diversified, renewable energy mix.

A substantial part of the power requirement arises as a result of the heating and cooling of buildings. The present development is made by two facts: On the one hand the heat consumption is lowered by large progress for the better thermal insulation of the building covers. A plus at floor space, ever more electrical devices and controls, increased use of heat pumps etc. lead on the other hand to increased requirements of electricity.

Geothermie: Warmth, electricity and volume energy

The renewable energies are very popular. Within these energies the geothermal energy exhibits a special value, because it is available at any time, independently of wind, weather and sun exposure. The terrestrial heat makes the heating possible from small family houses to large office buildings. The underground of a building can be used likewise for cooling.

I addition the deep Geotherm becomes more and more important. With the “Deep Heat Mining” - project in Basle (Switzerland) will be developed a first electrical power unit in Switzerland. The occured earthquakes  not only delayed the project, but also showed that for this new technology still big research is needed.. It is now a large challenge to build pilot power stations on further locations of Switzerland  to clarify the possibilities of the production of volume energy. Switzerland has the goal, to increase the portion of the renewable electricity production to at least 70%. The deep Geothermie will contribute in 20 to 30 years an important part here.

 

Confession of the politics

The fact that these developments have to be supported is natural:  In addition a confession of the policy belongs to introduce appropriate financial supports for risk capital and fee remuneration for the renewable electricity. very important is the preceding research work. Such necessary research and efforts of development, creation of useful computation tools and the use of technologies, is supported by the Federal Office for energy (BFE) since a long time and will also be done intensively in the future, even more since legal bases are done.