I went solar in Switzerland – I now know why many people don’t

I am standing in front of my solar panels installed on the roof of my house in Switzerland. Kristian Foss Brandt

My experience with rooftop solar showed me what’s holding others back from embracing the technology.

The first time our electricity meter ran backwards, it felt like a small, nerdy win. On a sunny spring afternoon, our roof was producing more electricity than we could use. The house was warm, the battery was charged and power was flowing back into the grid, earning us money with each kilowatt-hour.

When we installed solar panels, it felt like an easy way to help the climate and lower our electricity bill, all without changing much about how we live.

A year later, that early optimism has stayed with me. But I did not expect that my decision would turn from a climate choice into an exercise in using spreadsheets.

In Switzerland, installing home solar is less a plug-and-play decision than a financial calculation shaped by subsidies, tax rules and shifting regulations. Navigating it is not for the faint-of-heart or low-of-cash.

Up-front costs: Where optimism meets the calculator

After thinking about it for a while, we decided in 2025 that the conditions were right to go solar. We had a suitable roof, subsidies were available from the government and electricity prices had jumped since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The full setup – including 40 panels, an inverter, installation and a home battery –  came to around CHF39,000 ($51,000). Switzerland’s one-off subsidy dropped the cost to CHF32,000. Where we live in Fribourg, the installation is tax-deductible, which lowered the effective cost by several thousand additional francs.

Once we decided, it took about four months to get the appropriate permits and install the panels, then another six months to get our subsidy.

We chose a system with a capacity of just over 18 kilowatts, which is large for a private home. Excluding the price of the battery, we paid about CHF1.70 per watt of generation capacity. 

By European standards, this is expensive. In neighbouring countries, similar rooftop systems often cost €1.20–1.50 (CHF1.10-1.37) per watt. Higher labour costs, scaffolding rules and more complex installations push Swiss prices up.

To encourage new installations, some countries offer leasing or third-party ownership models for solar arrays. These are common in the United States and Germany and they eliminate up-front costs entirely, a sharp contrast to Switzerland’s more cautious, homeowner-driven approach.

Waiting for the system to pay for itself

Because solar setups often send power back to the grid, it’s easy to think that a system will essentially pay for itself. This is true, but it takes time. And in Switzerland, it takes a long time.

Many other countries have stronger incentives to encourage solar, which not only drop up-front costs but make selling energy back to the grid more profitable. The US offers a 30% federal tax credit on solar installation costs. In the Netherlands, generous net-metering pays households retail price for the electricity they return to the grid, instead of a lower rate that many other countries (including Switzerland) pay. In Germany, households receive a guaranteed feed-in rate for 20 years, meaning the price paid for selling excess solar electricity is fixed in advance and does not depend on short-term market fluctuations or changes in policy.

In Switzerland, feed-in rates are set by local utilities and can change over time, making future returns harder for households to predict.

Lower costs, lower paybacks

Studies External linkby the federal technology institute ETH Zurich and the University of Bern show that rooftop solar in Switzerland pays off mainly through lowering household power bills, not profiting from selling excess power. And while my bills were lower with solar, they did not go away entirely.

From February 2025 to February 2026, our rooftop panels generated close to 15,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity. Our four-person household consumed just over 10,000 kilowatt-hours. This does not mean all of our electricity needs were covered, though. Supply and demand run in seasonal cycles.

In summer, our production often exceeded demand. The battery filled up before noon. To take advantage, we shifted daily routines, like starting the dishwasher, to sunny hours. In winter, solar generation dropped sharply. Even with a battery, most of our evening power demand came from the grid. On average for the year, solar covered about half of our demand, and the excess was sold to the grid.

Snow-covered solar panels in winter stop electricity production until the snow melts or slides off. Kristian Foss Brandt

The revenue from that sale wasn’t enough to cover what we needed to buy – a situation that is common in Switzerland.  In many areas, households receive only CHF0.05-0.10 per kilowatt-hour of electricity fed into the grid, far below the price to buy electricity.

My home system earned us around CHF0.10 per kilowatt-hour sold. Buying electricity costs roughly twice that once grid fees and taxes are included. Overall, our electricity bill dropped from around CHF2,500 per year to CHF200-300. That figure includes electricity for heating and hot water, as our home also uses a heat pump.

An uncertain investment in the short-term

Based on current rates and our consumption, it will likely take around ten years for our system to have paid for itself. However, this estimate depends on steady electricity prices and stable regulations.

Those studies from ETH Zurich and the University of Bern indicate that the long payback period is one of the main reasons households put off installing solar. This, combined with the high up-front costs, makes solar a serious investment that not everyone can afford.

The uncertainty of the investment is increasing. In 2026, new national regulations linked buyback rates to quarterly market prices, meaning Swiss households can no longer count on a fixed price for surplus electricity over time.

And for many people, the decision whether to go solar is out of their hands. Around 64% of Swiss households live in rented homes, and tenants have little influence over whether solar panels are installed on their buildings.

Researchers have warned External linkthat rooftop solar, as currently designed, risks reinforcing existing inequalities in access to clean energy by favouring homeowners with extra money and leaving others out.

Beyond residential solar

By the end of 2025, around 300,000 of Switzerland’s residential buildings had photovoltaic installations. Industry data suggest the growth is no longer driven by single-family homes. While overall solar capacity continues to rise, installations on private houses like mine declined slightly in 2024, while larger systems on apartment blocks and commercial buildings expanded. Some of this is mandated by local laws. In canton Lucerne, new buildings and major roof renovations are required to make use of rooftop solar potential.

The uptick in large arrays is good news for the climate. National energy modelling from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy suggests that meeting long-term climate and electricity goals will require solar beyond residential roofs.

“For stronger growth in Switzerland, we also need installations outside buildings, e.g. agrophotovoltaics and on infrastructure,” says David Stickelberger, deputy managing director at Swissolar, the national solar industry association.

These larger systems tend to deliver lower costs per kilowatt-hour and greater emissions reductions than household solar.

Still, home solar installations have a role to play. They contribute to the green energy transformation, and they can ease demand on power grids.

Swissolar links the residential slowdown to regulatory uncertainty and long payback periods.

In response to these hurdles, policymakers and utilities are trying to reduce the individual financial risk of solar panels. They have expanded collective models, such as Switzerland’s ZEV system (Zusammenschluss zum Eigenverbrauch – merger for self-consumption), which allows residents of the same building to share rooftop solar electricity, for example at Zurich’s Kalkbreite housing cooperative.

These steps help, but they also point to a broader reality. As long as home solar requires households to take on long-term financial risk, adoption will remain uneven. Scaling solar further will require making clean electricity not just technically viable, but financially predictable – especially for people who cannot afford to wait a decade or more for payback.

Why many Swiss households hesitate to install solar panels

Payback time

Typical payback period for rooftop solar in Switzerland: around 10–15 years

Self-consumption matters

Without a battery or flexible electricity use, households typically consume around 25–35% of their solar electricity directly

With a heat pump and battery, self-consumption can rise to around 50–70%

Feed-in remuneration

Typical feed-in tariffs: around CHF0.05-0.10 per kilowatt-hour

Retail electricity price: roughly CHF0.20–0.30 per kilowatt-hour

Sources: Cantonal utilities; Swiss Federal Office of Energy, ETH Zurich building-energy research

In 2024, Switzerland produced 6 TWh of solar electricity which avoided around 2–3 million tonnes of CO₂ (assuming it replaces a mix of gas and imported power) – a small but meaningful contribution towards climate goals.

Edited by Gabe Bullard/ts