Not so easy to propel a propeller
Keystone / Jean-Christophe Bott
Switzerland’s biggest wind farm is getting bigger – or at least more powerful. Production will go up by 40% after the installation of new turbines there.
This content was published on
1 minute
swissinfo.ch and agencies
Run by Bern-based electricity company BKW, the Mont Crosin wind farm in the Jura mountains has 16 wind turbines. The four oldest are now in the process of being replaced by more powerful ones. In a traffic-stopping manoeuvre on Wednesday, one of the new blades was carefully transported through the town of La Ferriere – a tight fit for the 55-metre-long blade.
Switzerland’s first wind energy plant came into operation in 1986. In addition to Mont Crosin in canton Bern, other large facilities are in operation in Collonges (canton Valais), Entlebuch (canton Lucerne) and on the Gütsch (canton Uri).
The plants provided 88 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity in 2012, the equivalent of the annual consumption of almost 25,000 households. According to the Swiss government’s energy strategy, the production of electricity by wind power should reach 4,300 GWh by 2050.
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.
Read more
More
Switzerland drags feet over renewables
This content was published on
Switzerland is ranked 25th out of 29 countries in a comparative European study by the Swiss Energy Foundation, published on Tuesday. Only Slovenia, Slovakia, Hungary and Latvia produce less wind and solar energy per inhabitant than Switzerland. Denmark (2,619 Kwh per inhabitant), Sweden (1,704 Kwh) and Germany (1,556 Kwh) topped the table. Switzerland’s poor ranking…
This content was published on
Switzerland declined from rank 8 to rank 11 in the 2015 results of the Climate Change Performance Index, compiled annually by the Climate Action Networks (CAN Europe)External link and development organisation GermanwatchExternal link. The results are presented at the United Nations Climate conference in Lima on Monday. The ranking of 58 nations is led by…
This content was published on
Wind plants are one way Switzerland plans to reduce its dependency on nuclear energy. In 2011 the Swiss government decided to withdraw from the use of nuclear energy by gradually decommissioning the current nuclear power plants. A long-term energy strategy was drawn up that relies heavily on increased renewable energy, with wind energy playing an…
You can find an overview of ongoing debates with our journalists here. Please join us!
If you want to start a conversation about a topic raised in this article or want to report factual errors, email us at english@swissinfo.ch.