Although it will probably not be so scarce this winter: Switzerland will need more electricity in the coming years – for example because it wants to phase out the fossil fuels oil and gas.
This must be solved with many more solar systems on roofs, on facades and with huge systems in the Alps – and with a significant increase in hydropower. At a roundtable, Federal Councilor Simonetta Sommaruga (62) and the power plant industry agreed on 15 projects that should be built as top priorities – including the controversial raising of the Grimsel Dam and planned new buildings at the Trift and Gorner Glaciers .
Replacement list with 17 other power plants
To raise the Grimseldam by 23 meters, the parliament led by SVP Federal Council candidate Albert Rösti (55) even reversed the normal legal procedures. Even if that doesn’t help to quickly produce more power. Because the responsible canton of Bern has yet to approve a new structure plan and the power plants of Oberhasli AG (KWO) assume that the construction of a higher wall will take about six years.
This could also be the case for other projects on the list of 15. Therefore, the roundtable defined 17 other projects that should be implemented if the 15 do not go according to plan. Which projects these were, has been kept secret until now. Because the ‘observer’ expressed the replacement list and other details on the list of 15 under the Freedom of Information Act.
- The dam at Lac des Toules in Valais will be raised 32 meters.
- Above Binn VS, next to a 120 meter high new sheet pile wall, a network of tunnels is to be built – from Chummensee via Ernen VS to Mörel VS.
- The dam on the Trift would be 177 meters high.
- The sheet pile wall on the Gornergletscher is said to be 85 meters high.
- A new hydroelectric power station with a 40-metre-high dam is being built on the Allalingletscher in Valais.
- The Zervreila dam in Graubünden will be raised by 10 metres
- At Ferpècle VS a new dam of 90 meters high will be built.
- A dam 54 meters high is being built at the Haut Glacier d’Arolla.
- In Graubünden, several river power plants are being expanded or newly built.
Documents available to the “observer” also reveal which criteria played a role in determining which projects were on which list: for example, a total of five variants were developed for the assessment – those of the electricity companies’ favorite major projects performed best. Because the corporations would have wanted those projects on the list that promise a lot of profit. Smaller power plants, which had been approved for years, were not considered at all – for example, the pumped-storage Grimsel 3.
Large projects put more pressure on the environment
Well-known experts such as Bernhard Wehrli, former member of the board of directors of ETH’s water research institute Eawag, speak of a “botched procedure” in view of the investigation, telling the “Observer”: “Those responsible have fundamental errors.”
Large-scale projects also cause a lot of damage to the unique alpine landscape. Nick Röllin, chairman of the Grimsel Association, calculated that after raising the sheet pile, Grimselsee would have four times more storage potential than the expected increase in Mattmarksee – but would cause 54 times more environmental damage. The planned Trift Reservoir pollutes the environment 118 times, the Gorner Reservoir 225 times more. “In view of such catastrophic benefit-harm ratios of environmentally friendly projects to talk is a mockery,” Röllin told the “observer”. (sf)