Suisse Eole

General information on wind power

mandated by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy

Swiss Federal Office of Energy

Produced by

Meteotest

Swiss Wind Power Concept

The aim of the Swiss government's energy policy is to produce an additional 500 GWh of electricity per year from renewable sources with the program "swissenergy" by the year 2010. A part of 50-100 GWh is to be contributed by wind power. Landscape protection organisations as well as several cantons suggested that the Swiss government should provide a conceptional base for the development of wind parks in Switzerland. Consequently, the Swiss Federal Offices of Energy, Environment as well as Spatial Development decided to prepare a base for the choice and evaluation of wind power sites with the "Swiss Wind Power Concept".

The main goal of the concept was to find a consensus on basic principles for wind power installations until 2010 between the different interest groups in the government, cantons, energy industry as well as environmental agencies. In order to achieve this, a support group containing members of the bodies mentioned above was formed, and criteria for wind power installations were discussed. In a second step, 110 potential wind park sites that fulfill the criteria agreed upon were identified by GIS modeling. The results were sent to all cantons and organizations present in the support group for consultation in January 2004. The results were generally accepted well and were welcome as a basis for further wind power development.

The Wind Energy Concept is an important tool for everyone who is engaged with wind power development in Switzerland. Only by further processing of the results on a cantonal and communal level will the requirements enabling a good wind power development be established.

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Further Results