Swiss Alpine solar farms show promise – and limits

The Madrisa solar farm near Klosters in southeastern Switzerland, August 2025, Keystone / Gian Ehrenzeller

Switzerland is developing large solar farms in the mountains to increase the generation of renewable power, especially in winter. They are being rolled out under the federal “Solar Express” scheme, launched in 2022, which has met with mixed success. An analysis by Swiss public TV, SRF.

The Swiss government launched the “Solar Express” initiative (see infobox below) just over three years ago.

Around 30 large solar power plants are currently planned in the Swiss Alps, and are in various stages of completion or approval, while a similar number of projects have been turned down.

>>Map showing Alpine solar farms in Switzerland (situation as of December 2025. Hover over colour category to see details).

The original deadline to register projects was the end of 2025, but the deadline and law were extended and modified last spring.

Solar Express

Amid concerns over the climate crisis and energy supplies, the Swiss parliament approvedExternal link legislation in 2022 to simplify and speed up the construction of large solar farms in high-mountain areas and boost electricity production in winter. The law lowered the hurdles for construction – including strict environmental regulations – and offered generous subsidies (60% of project costs). Operators had to start feeding electricity into the grid from the end of 2025 in order to secure the vital state funding. The scheme was extended by parliament in March 2025, and the original deadline was scrapped.

Swiss lawmakers decided to extend the federal support to maintain current momentum; several projects submitted face legal appeals and technical challenges, which have caused their delay.

Around 30 large solar power plants are currently planned in the Swiss Alps, while a similar number of projects have been turned down. In canton Valais, where the scheme was born, by the end of 2025 not a single facility had been built or received legal go-ahead.

Solar Express has nonetheless revealed several major insights:

Fast implementation

One of the most striking aspects of Solar Express is the speed of implementation. Three years ago, the first Alpine solar farms existed only on paper.

Now, four plants are under construction and are generating electricity in cantons Graubünden and Uri in southeastern and central Switzerland, respectively. Several others are planned or in progress in other Alpine regions.

This shows that the country can still implement large energy projects quickly. However, this only works if everyone pulls together: politicians, promoters, authorities, environmental organisations and the general public.

The local population often supports solar farms in the Alps

Political support in the chosen region is crucial. The local population has approved roughly half of all planned projects. Clearly, people accept such installations in their immediate vicinity.

The often-repeated argument that nobody wants a solar farm near where they live seems to be refuted by the evidence of Solar Express.

It is also true that certain projects would not have progressed this far if environmental organisations hadn’t intervened. They didn’t reject projects outright but insisted on specific concerns in specific locations.

In this regard, it’s also often forgotten that there are major differences in quality between the projects, for example, regarding the choice of location or the design of the facility.

Likely to miss national energy target

Solar Express has also revealed certain limitations. The idea of ​​producing large quantities of electricity in the Alps during winter using solar power plants is likely to fail. The plants currently under construction and those planned will fall short of the government’s original goal: total annual production capacity of two terawatt-hours (2 TWh).

The Swiss government’s long-term energy strategy has much higher targets for renewable energy (excluding hydropower) to be achieved by 2035 (35 TWh) and 2050 (45 TWh). 

Energy companies put on the brakes

Failure to achieve this target with Alpine solar farms is partly due to the reluctance of energy suppliers.

For electricity companies, Solar Express is both a challenge and a golden opportunity. For years, companies complained that it was very difficult to implement new renewable energy projects in Switzerland because they often encountered local resistance. Under Solar Express, policymakers subsequently lowered the hurdles for such projects.

But it is now becoming clear that energy companies are only using this model with great caution – and reluctantly. The costs for Alpine solar power plants are very highExternal link (see infobox), and so it is difficult to find buyers for the expensive electricity. The steel infrastructure on which the solar panels are mounted in the Alps is one of the main cost factors. Here, the Alpine terrain and harsh weather conditions are to blame.

Municipalities and cantons need to address shortcomings

While some energy suppliers are building solar farms to avoid being criticised for failing to take advantage of this political opportunity, from an economic perspective they are not particularly keen on constructing more projects.

The owners of the energy suppliers – usually Swiss municipalities and cantons – need to address this issue. They must clarify what price electricity supply should, or could, have in future, or whether lucrative dividends are ultimately more important for them. So far, the owners have largely evaded this responsibility.

In many ways, Switzerland’s Solar Express experiment serves as a model for the expansion of renewable energy, showing clearly what is feasible and the precise limits.

Alpine solar farms – pros v cons

Supporters of Alpine solar parks say they offer certain advantages. The mountains provide lots of sunshine, especially in winter, and installations can produce solar energy above the clouds. This means that they can produce electricity even during the winter, when demand is high and fog covers many solar panels in lowland regions.

Solar panels are most efficient in the low temperatures of the high Alps and two-sided panels can be fixed upright to catch more rays bouncing off the snow and ice.

Experts at Bern’s University of Applied Sciences estimateExternal link that overall a photovoltaic module installed at high altitude produces approximately one-and-a-half times more energy annually than a comparable system located in the lowlands. And crucially, Alpine solar installations provide roughly four to five times more electricity in winter than panels in the lowlands.

However, the cost of an Alpine solar installation is significantly higher than one in the lowlands due to greater logistical and structural challenges. Christof Bucher, a professor of photovoltaic systems, estimates that electricity from Alpine solar installations is two to four times more expensive than photovoltaic energy produced in the lowlands.

Among other criticisms, environmental groups claim that they disfigure the landscape and have negative impacts on biodiversity. Their large surface area requirements and need for special locations also raise questions.

Such plants already exist in some regions of China and, on a smaller scale, in the mountains of France and Austria.

Adapted from German by AI with input by Simon Bradley

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