BERN. The Federal Council on Wednesday set out a package of emergency measures intended to carry Switzerland through the coming winter without compulsory curbs on electricity or gas consumption. The plan would pay hydropower operators to hold back water for the coldest months and, for the first time, allow Bern to treat designated alpine lakes as a strategic national reserve. It is the most consequential intervention in the energy market since the crisis measures of 2022.
Switzerland generates roughly 56 per cent of its electricity from hydropower, but output falls sharply in winter just as demand for heating peaks. The country has imported winter electricity for most of the past two decades, and its gas, used for about 15 per cent of final energy, arrives entirely through pipelines connected to German and French terminals. Two mild winters have eased the immediate pressure, but officials insist the underlying exposure has not changed.
Under the draft ordinance, operators of storage lakes in Valais, Graubünden, Ticino and the Bernese Oberland could be instructed to hold defined volumes of water in reserve between December and March. In exchange they would be compensated for the revenue lost by not generating during the lucrative autumn price window. The Energy Ministry estimates the reserved water could deliver about 600 gigawatt hours of additional winter output, enough to supply roughly 150,000 households for a season.
A second pillar extends the gas procurement obligations first introduced in 2022. Large importers must hold 15 per cent of their expected winter deliveries in storage, either in facilities in France and Germany or as firm contracts with suppliers outside the Russian pipeline network. A third pillar streamlines approval for emergency generation capacity, including mobile turbines that drew criticism from environmental groups three winters ago.
The government wants the ordinance in force by November, which leaves little time for the customary consultation rhythm. Officials argue the legal basis already exists in the urgent federal act on a secure electricity supply, which parliament extended only last year. Speed, in their telling, is the whole point: winter contracts are settled in the autumn, and reserves declared in December would arrive too late.
Reaction from the cantons that own most of the storage capacity was cautious rather than hostile. Valais and Graubünden have long complained that Bern treats alpine valleys as the national battery while their communities bear the environmental costs. Cantonal governments signalled they could accept reserve obligations if compensation reflects market prices rather than administrative estimates, a distinction worth tens of millions of francs.
The package carries an estimated annual cost of CHF 280 million, financed through the existing network surcharge on electricity bills. Officials say the surcharge would rise by about 0.1 centimes per kilowatt hour, or roughly CHF 4.50 a year for an average household. The gas obligations are expected to add a further CHF 60 million in administrative and financing costs.
Officials describe the package as a hedge against scenarios they cannot control, from a cold snap in the Alps to another round of French reactor outages. “The reserve framework is an insurance policy, cheaper bought before the fire,” a spokesperson for the Energy Ministry said.
Critics on the right argue the package treats symptoms rather than causes. They point to the slow permitting of new generation and note that several large alpine solar and wind projects remain tied up in objections from environmental organisations. Business groups, while broadly supportive, warn that compulsory reserves could distort the very price signals that bring private investment forward.
The ordinance now enters a shortened consultation of six weeks, with cantons, the electricity industry and environmental organisations invited to respond by mid October. The Federal Council intends to adopt the final text in late November, so that reserve volumes can be fixed before winter contracts are settled. Parliament's energy committees will be briefed but have no formal vote, a procedural choice that has already drawn grumbling.
The debate lands as Switzerland's stalled electricity negotiations with the European Union show no sign of revival. Without an agreement, Swiss grid operators fear exclusion from European balancing platforms, a technical isolation that would make winter shortfalls harder to manage. The package is, in part, a bid to buy resilience that diplomacy has failed to secure.
Whether it proves adequate will depend less on paperwork in Bern than on snowfall in the Alps and repair schedules in French nuclear plants. Both lie beyond the Federal Council's reach, which is why officials frame the reserves as a hedge rather than a guarantee. The next test of the framework will arrive with the first proper cold spell.