More renewables are needed for the electricity of the future

(CONNECT) Switzerland's energy system is to be decarbonized and nuclear-free by 2050. The report by a research consortium involving researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH), the Universities of Bern and Geneva, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) in Birmensdorf ZH and the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW) in Winterthur deals with feasibility and costs.

It was created for SWEET (Swiss Energy Research for the Energy Transition), the funding program of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. EDGE is a consortium funded by SWEET and coordinated by the University of Geneva and EPFL.

The key point of the EDGE report is securing electricity demand until 2050. According to the press release, 60 percent of Switzerland's electricity needs must be covered by new renewable energy sources and the capacity of solar power plants must be quadrupled. The capacity of the wind turbines would have to be 80 times greater.

“This strong increase in photovoltaics and wind energy by 2050 is hardly conceivable without effective subsidies,” says Giovanni Sansavini, Professor of Reliability and Risk Engineering at ETH and one of the co-authors of the study.

The researchers also conclude that functioning electricity trading with other countries is crucial for a cost-efficient Swiss electricity supply.

A partial study of the EDGE report models how expensive it could be to achieve the net zero target in the Paris Climate Agreement. The researchers assume that the prices of fossil fuels and the production costs of many goods will rise by 2050 as a result of CO2 taxes and emissions trading. ce/gba