Planned solar park at Bern airport scaled back after talks
Select your language
Generated with artificial intelligence.
Listening:
Planned solar park at Bern airport scaled back after talks
The ground-mounted solar plant at Belpmoos Airport outside Bern will be smaller than planned, the parties involved in the operation said on Tuesday.
The plant will be reduced in size by around a third and is now set to cover 16.5 hectares. Up to 28 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity will be generated annually on the area, according to a statement from the Belpmoossolar company – enough to power up to 8,000 households. The winter electricity share is 28%.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
Part of the area is expected to be included in an inventory of dry meadows of national importance this autumn as part of the Federal Council’s revision of the Dry Grasslands Ordinance, according to the company statement. At 21.8 hectares, the dry meadow part in the national inventory will cover 1.5 hectares more than it originally did in the regional inventory.
More
Construction starts on first large-scale solar park in Swiss Alps
Environmental organisations involved
The original plan was for a 25-hectare plant which would produce up to 42 GWh of electricity per year. Opposition to this came, for example, from environmental organisations and the Natur-Belpmoos association.
The resizing is the result of “intense discussions” at a round table with environmental organisations and authorities, Belpmoossolar said. The Federal Office for the Environment, canton Bern and representatives of WWF, Pro Natura, Birdlife Switzerland and the Swiss Foundation for Landscape Conservation were involved.
Belpmoossolar added that it was now examining the technical and economic impact of the redimensioned project. Development is planned for 2026. BKW Energie AG, Flughafen Bern AG and Energie Wasser Bern are also all involved.
Translated from German by DeepL/dos
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
External Content
More
Why Switzerland is among the ten fastest-warming countries in the world
More
In Switzerland four out of ten people have a migrant background – who are they?
More
Suicides in Switzerland quadruple among older people
More
French gangs target luxury cars in Switzerland
More
Renewed controversy in Switzerland over US fighter jets – explained
In compliance with the JTI standards
More: SWI swissinfo.ch certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative
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.