Consumption grouping under the self-consumption framework may be the most consequential measure in Switzerland’s Energy Strategy 2050. The energy law approved by referendum on 21 May 2017, with an implementing ordinance applicable from 1 January 2018, makes it simultaneously an opening of the captive market from below, a driver of solar PV deployment, and the regulatory foundation for new business models such as storage and microgrids.
The principle is straightforward: several connected consumers are treated as a single consumer on the distribution network, represented by the landowners. Two conditions frame the scheme: on-site generation exceeding 10 % of maximum connected capacity, and a physical link between consumers allowing a single grid connection point.
A twofold break for the power system
First for consumers. Customers currently captive, below 100 MWh a year, can group together to collectively cross that threshold and reach the open market. With low wholesale prices, the option becomes attractive in supply areas with the highest tariffs.
Second for distribution network operators, whose scope narrows, particularly on metering and on parts of the low-voltage network.
Several applications were emerging: new districts or condominiums with solar or combined heat and power connected at a single point, groupings of adjacent homes in agricultural areas, renovation of a set of buildings under an energy performance contract, or a microgrid launched by a significant local private player such as a shopping centre.
A market of 1 to 3 TWh a year
Under 2017 market conditions, wholesale at 4 cents/kWh and full PV cost at 25 cents/kWh, the average electricity cost for an open-market consumer with an installation covering 10 % of connected capacity comes to around 7 cents/kWh.
That threshold is decisive. Around 65 % of Swiss captive volume faces energy tariffs above 7 cents/kWh, making grouping economically justifiable straight away. The addressable market sits between 1 and 3 TWh a year, up to 10 % of captive customer consumption nationally.
That average hides wide local variation. In development or renovation areas, and where energy tariffs sit well above market price, the share is far higher. Broader acceleration remains possible if the economics shift: confirmation of the price rise begun in 2017, falling cell and inverter costs, improving yields.
A model converging with the market’s underlying dynamics
Grouping provides a favourable framework for the cooperative model, already well established in Europe with some 2,400 cooperatives recorded as early as 2014, ADEV and EHS being Swiss pioneers. It also benefits from digital technologies for sub-metering, billing and internal flow optimisation.
Synergies with distributed storage, more than 50,000 households equipped in Germany to maximise self-consumption, decentralised demand management and electric vehicles are strong. Our survey of users in Vaud and Fribourg found that 30 % of electric vehicle users already had a solar installation.
Open questions and competition from outside the sector
Several points remained unsettled: the spatial perimeter of a grouping, sub-metering and certification arrangements, control of internal tariffs and of supply guarantees, treatment of a consumer physically inside a grouping but declining to join, and the effect on tax revenues under mass deployment.
Market players were already moving: BKW created Engytec, Groupe E developed an energy manager for the Marly Innovation Center, Alpiq built connected-capacity optimisation capability through Xamax, and FMV and EnAlpin launched the e-can cooperative. Competition was also coming from outside the sector, with Vinci acquiring a demand management start-up and smart grid offerings from Tesla and Renault.
The Swiss specificity lies not in technology but in a hybrid market where any consumer below 100 MWh a year stays on regulated tariffs. Grouping is what allows that line to be crossed.
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