Switzerland to back PV expansion with CHF 450m in 2022

The Swiss government will provide CHF 450 million (USD 487.47m/EUR 425.81m) in one-off subsidies to support the expansion of solar PV systems in the country in 2022, the Swiss Federal Office of Energy said on Friday.

In 2020, Switzerland added 475 MW of new solar PV capacity and this record high may be exceeded this year thanks to higher demand. In January-October 2021, the authority received more than 18,000 applications for a one-off subsidy for solar PV installations, a year-on-year increase of 25%. Over 2,000 applications were submitted in September alone.

Small PV systems with applications for the KLEIV subsidy submitted between April 2020 and end-August 2021 will receive financing assurance by the end of this year. In 2021, a total of CHF 150 million in subsidies will be paid for 26,000 small installations with a total capacity of about 350 MW. One-time payments will also be made for about 500 large PV plants of 168 MW under GREIV.

No plants have been added to the feed-in tariff scheme, known as KEV, in the Alpine country since the start of the year. Currently, as many as 12,085 PV systems receive a feed-in tariff and 19 PV projects have a funding assurance.

The subsidies for renewable energy in Switzerland are financed by electricity consumers in the country who have been paying a grid surcharge of CHF 0.023 per kWh with their electricity bills since the start of 2018.

(CHF 1 = USD 1.083/EUR 0.946)

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