Hydroelectric station, canton Valais, Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Electricity price increases announced in 2009 by several suppliers were provisionally rejected in July 2009 by Bern as unnecessarily high, and Monday 8 March the federal electricity commission confirmed this. The commission’s report says that the increases were based on costs that were over-estimated in some cases and unacceptable inefficiency in other cases. The energy companies have the right to appeal, but if they do not the rate hikes will have to be abandoned.
The companies concerned are: Alpiq, BKW, Axpo (Axpo AG, CKW, EGL), EWZ and Rätia Energie, along with a number of smaller firms.
Wind turbine, Switzerland
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Canton Vaud will have 10 additional wind turbines on a third site, by 2014, Romande Energie announced Friday 5 March. The communes of Longirod and Marchissy, at the foot of the Jura, have agreed to their construction, as have the landowners. The wind energy produced by the mills will supply electricity to some 10,000 households. The cost to build them: CHF60 million.
Romande Energie has set a target to have 10 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources by 2020-2025, the company notes.
Links to other sites: Longirod, Romande Energy, Swiss federal department of energy on wind energy
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A major power outage caused by a malfunction at an electric station in Romanel affected much of the Lausanne area Monday evening: the M1, M2 and TL city public transport lines were down and 70 percent of the city is reported to have been without electricity, but details are sketchy at this point (22:00). Police are overwhelmed by phone calls from people trapped in elevators, according to TSR. The power cut appears to have affected Montreux and Neuchatel as well as Lausanne.
Links to other sites: TSR (Fre), 24 Heures (Fre), Lausanne’s electricity, provided by the Services Industriels (Fre)
Coal plant, northern Germany (©2010 Andrew Kerr and WWF-Canon)
Lausanne, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - WWF Switzerland has filed a complaint with the European Union over the continuing support by some Swiss electricity companies of coal-based electricity production in northern Germany. Romande Energie is among several Swiss electricity suppliers who participate in the coal-based activities at Brunsbuettel in northern Germany.
Discreet Swiss hotel windows are sometimes a good minibar substitute
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The 55,000 mini-bars in Swiss hotels consume far more energy than the average home refrigerator for a family of four, some 24 million kW hours in a year. The heart of the problem is the sad news for hotel clients who love drinks in their rooms that a 40-litre minibar consumes 0.9 kW/h versus the 0.24 that a 150-litre refrigerator uses.
Power has been restored to much of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil after the two cities experienced four hours of electrical blackout. The power outage, apparently caused by transmission problems at a hydroelectrical station at the Itaipu dam, also briefly affected neighbouring Paraguay and, for longer, nine of Brazil’s 27 states. MCNBC reports that the dam is the world’s second largest, after China’s Three Gorges dam. The blackout is raising concerns about the country’s management of its electricity infrastructure, with recent accusations that earlier accusations that smaller blackouts have been caused by hackers, and with worries that power problems could be a problem in the runup to the 2016 Olympic Games.
Links to other sites: BrazzilMag, MSNBC, Shanghai Daily
Cyclones, floods, tsunamis in Asia, and late today it’s an earthquake in Indonesia that may have killed hundreds of people, the government there says of the most recent disaster to strike. Sumatra was hit by a 7.6 earthquake centred 50 km off its coast, and 75 people are known to have died but hundreds are trapped under rubble. Flights to Padang have been canceled and the electricity and most telecommunications are out in the area, increasing the difficulty of rescue work. BBC, Guardian, UK, Jakarta Post
Swiss windmill, Valais
Morges, Vaud and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Romande Energie, which serves electricity to much of French-speaking Switzerland and ewz, the energy company of the city of Zurich, are joining force to create a consortium that will build the country’s largest wind generating station if the project is approved. The two groups presented their plans Wednesday morning 17 June, for a project to build windmills in three Vaud villages in the Jura, Provence, Romairon, Fantanezier and the village of Val-de-Travers in canton Neuchatel.
Electrical station, Geneva
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The federal government is starting what it refers to as a close scrutiny of the proposed electricity price hikes, 26 percent higher than rates set by the Federal Energy Commision, announced in May by national electricity carrier swissgrid.
Valais, Swiss hydroelectric power
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A strong GDP (gross domestic product), larger population and leap year all contributed to a 2.3 percent increase in energy consumption in Switzerland in 2008, the federal government says. The 58.7 billion kilowatt hours set a record for annual consumption. Electricity production also set a record, up 1.6 percent, but it was unable to keep pace with consumption and Swiss electricity exports to neighbouring countries in summer were nearly halved. In winter, when Switzerland imports some electricity, the amount needed rose.
Etoy, Vaud, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – A command station in Etoy Wednesday morning at 10:00 set off a 15-minute electricity cut in the Aubonne-Morges area, followed by a second power outage in the same area shortly after 11:00.
Updated 3 October, 09:00
Bern, Switzerland (TSR, Fre) – Electricity prices will be going up rapidly in the wake of the Swiss market being opened early in 2009 and, according to TSR, they could double within five years.
