Swissgrid: 40 GW Solar by 2050 Needs Full System Overhaul
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- Swissgrid released a white paper on integrating 40 GW of PV by 2050, building on roughly 9.62 GW already deployed in Switzerland by the end of last year across more than 300,000 systems.
- The paper concludes that 40 GW integration is "hardly conceivable" under current processes, with Prof. Christof Bucher of Bern University of Applied Sciences stating the "entire system needs to be overhauled" — not just two or three new balancing-energy products.
- Swissgrid recommends cutting grid connection capacity for solar plants by up to 50%, estimating roughly 15% of annual energy would not be fed into the grid — with system owners free to self-consume or store it — replacing today's priority feed-in rules.
- The paper calls for abolishing solar's priority feed-in, ending financial incentives during negative-price hours, and shifting PV design from maximizing annual yield to capacity-building that contributes during winter months.
- Storage is positioned as central, with Bucher arguing batteries will eventually "undercut each other" in balancing-energy markets and must lift solar's 15-20% production share toward 50%.
- Bucher said work is already underway on most recommendations but is fragmented, with the white paper intended to coordinate distribution-system operators, support-scheme designers, and balancing-market reform efforts.
Why it matters: Switzerland's grid operator is effectively saying its own policy framework can't reach the 2050 solar target without dismantling the priority feed-in regime that has driven rooftop PV adoption to date — a politically sensitive tradeoff for legislators who must keep rooftop economics viable while cutting 15% of potential annual feed-in and ending the price signals that built the existing 9.62 GW base.
