New Swiss FITs in March

On March 1, 2012, new feed-in tariffs will take effect in Switzerland for photovoltaics, wind power, and biomass from timber.

An insolation map of Switzerland. The country will be lowering its feed-in tariffs for PV in March but raising those for wind and woody biomass.

At the beginning of February, Switzerland's Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy, and Communications announced the new feed-in tariffs for renewable energy that will take effect on March 1 in order to take account of changing costs. While the fees paid for electricity from photovoltaics will be reduced by 10 percent, the rates have been tweaked for wind power and slightly raised for woody biomass. Feed-in tariffs for other technologies remained unchanged.

At the beginning of 2009, Switzerland adopted feed-in tariffs for renewable electricity and stipulated that there would be regular reviews of the specific rates. At the end of October 2011, the government reached an agreement with industry associations after the first review, and these new rates will be taking effect in less than two weeks.
The rates for photovoltaics had already been reduced by eight percent on January 1, but in light of plummeting prices for photovoltaics the government obviously felt that further reductions were necessary. Despite the 18 percent reduction within only two months, the government says that it plans to revisit the cost of photovoltaics this summer and may reduce rates even further.

For wind power, the feed-in tariffs offered were found to be too high in windy areas but too low in less suitable locations. The maximum rate has therefore been increased from 0.20 Swiss francs (roughly 0.17 euros) to 0.215 francs (roughly 0.18 euros). But these rates only apply for five years and can be reduced at that time to 0.135 francs (roughly 0.12 euros) depending on actual power production.

The government estimates that investment costs for units running on woody biomass are around 10 percent higher than originally estimated, especially for small systems with outputs below five megawatts. Therefore, the bonus for woody biomass will increase by 0 to 0.045 francs (0.04 euros) per kilowatt-hour depending on system size.

The changes that take place on March 1 do not apply for solar arrays or wind turbines that have already received approval even if they go into operation after the end of February. Furthermore, the bonus for woody biomass also applies retroactively for systems installed before March 1. (Craig Morris)