An enormous large-scale photovoltaic system is being built in the municipality of Grengiols. At least when it comes to the House of Representatives and former SP chairman Peter Bodenmann (70).
Bodenmann’s plan is to build solar fields on the steep southern slopes of Valais. The field would cover five square kilometers, the equivalent of 700 football fields. The system would be huge by Swiss standards.
According to Bodenmann’s calculations, this solar field would provide two terawatt hours of electricity per year, half of which in winter. This corresponds to the energy produced by the largest hydroelectric power station, the Grande Dixence. For now, the project is still an idea. A feasibility study is currently underway. Concrete figures should be available by the end of the year.
Plant planned in a natural park
In view of the impending energy shortage, parliament very quickly adopted a federal urgent law in the autumn meeting, which in principle wants to allow large power stations such as this one with a minimum annual production of 20 GWh.
But not everyone agrees with the mega project. The newly founded interest group Saflischtal gives the opposition a voice. In a media report on Friday, the IG said it was convinced that a solar system of this size would not be compatible with a natural park. Because the solar system is located in the Saflischtal, which is uninhabited but part of a regional nature park.
Conservationists stunned
The IG wants to use visualizations to show what it means when five square kilometers of a “wild valley and a spacious alp are built with solar panels”. In their statement, opponents are convinced that there will be a change of opinion if the population sees what the valley and the meadows would look like with a “too big solar system”. The IG now has more than 200 members.
In addition, the affected alp is also cultivated, in the summer about 50 cows and 40 young animals graze there. Several tons of cheese are produced on site in five huts. “With the solar project, alpine agriculture has no future,” fear the opponents of the solar project.
Raimund Rodewald (63), director of the Swiss Foundation for Landscape Protection, is also stunned by the boom in alpine solar systems. “The entire Alps become a construction area, an emergency generator for the lowlands. I am speechless,” he told Radio SRF. 30 years of landscape and Alpine protection was overturned by parliament within weeks. (you)
Source:Blick
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