This week, Benoît Revaz, head of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE), said there is an unprecedented level of uncertainty in Europe concerning energy provision, reported RTS.
Prices have been seriously affected by the war in Ukraine and Switzerland has not been spared, said Revaz. We are now experiencing the first global energy crisis with Europe at the epicentre.
A central element of Revaz’s plan to get Switzerland through the crisis is reduced consumption and the need for an awareness campaign to encourage the population to cut energy use, something that should be in place by the end of August.
In addition, Switzerland is in the process of negotiating a deal with Germany to keep gas flowing and aims to start discussions with Italy. Discussions are also taking place related to hydro energy.
Michael Frank, head of the Swiss electricity association, thinks the risk of an electricity shortage is real. Doing nothing is not an option, said Frank.
The first line of defence against a black out is to call on businesses and the public to voluntarily cut consumption. The second phase would be to ban certain unnecessary forms of consumption, for example saunas and illuminated advertisements. The third phase would be to set quotas for large users. Then finally, if required, to introduce energy rationing. This would involve intermittently cutting the power supply to certain users in certain regions.
The plan is causing concern for some businesses and some electricity suppliers have warned of the anger such actions may trigger among the bosses of some businesses.
More on this:
RTS article (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
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HAROLD M MAYO says
According to the CERN website, the Swiss only provide backup power to CERN. The French powers all of CERN.
Sri says
May be every commercial shops should turn off their lights after business hours that it self will save lot of power if i am not wrong..
Luca says
That’s going to be “fun”.
With the rise of electric mobility and the digital industry we try to move away from fossil fuels and CO2 emissions. Now with an energy crisis coming we may finally be able to realize some of these goals but also get pushed away from electricity at the same time.
Can we really cut on fossil fuels and if so, to what extent? What would that mean for electric power consumption?
Where can we get our power from? Should we really shut down our nuclear reactors? If so, what alternatives are there and how fast can we set them up? If not, where can we get uranium from? Where are we going to put it after use? How do we ensure health and safety for the public?
There is going to be a huge political debate about this.
And now that it’s getting hotter, especially in the last few days, we want to be satisfied with the comfort of an air conditioning. The solution here would be city-wide central cooling systems instead of overpolluting mobile A/C units.
I am excited how problems will be solved, what new problems arise and how consumption develops in the coming years.
Ana says
What about CERN and how much energy does it consume?
Albert says
Pathetic. Not supported by science and there are many other non essential drains on Swiss power.
CERN uses about 1/3 of Geneva’s annual energy needs .https://home.cern/science/engineering/powering-cern
Switching off that pointless experiment would at least show some commitment to the people for once. At least then they could still use their sauna!