Swissgrid supports the generation of electricity from renewable sources. Swissgrid manages cost-covering remuneration for feed-in to the electricity grid and issues guarantees of origin for green electricity.
New installations are required
Swissgrid handles the payment of the cost-covering feed-in remuneration (CRF) for the Federal Government. The remuneration supports producers whose installations generate electricity from renewable sources, including hydropower, biomass, geothermal as well as wind and solar energy. Since the launch of the CRF registration procedure on 1 May 2008, over 11,000 registrations have been received. Of those, just under 3,000 received a positive decision and some 8,000 applications are still on the waiting list (as of 1 December 2010). Almost 2,000 of the approved plants have gone into operation so far.
Only if it says green electricity...
Today, electricity consumers can choose their own electricity. And they are increasingly choosing green electricity. Electricity suppliers are obliged to prove the origin of their electricity. Swissgrid issues these guarantees of origin and monitors them. Guarantees of origin certify that the electricity labelled as green electricity was produced from renewable energy sources.
Integrating renewable energies into the grid – A challenge for grid operator
Alongside rising electricity consumption and the connection of new power stations, the increasing feed-in of electricity from renewable energies is posing major challenges for the operators of distribution systems and transmission systems. This is in part due to the difficulty of planning how much energy solar and wind power can be expected to feed in currently and in the future. This can lead to significant variance between power fed in from renewable energies and power plant schedules, thereby putting system reliability at risk. An example analysis of the load profiles of an individual photovoltaic installation shows:
- How much the power fed in from renewable energies fluctuates
- How energy production and consumption varies throughout the day and during the year
- How the actual production of the installation deviates from the installed capacity