Interview with Jacques Mauron, Chief Executive Officer of Groupe E
Each month, we interview different sectors and professions on specific topics. For this month of October, the floor is given to energy suppliers regarding Switzerland's energy policy.
The responses of Jacques Mauron, Director General of Groupe E.
The Parliament and the Federal Council are focusing on increasing renewable energy in Switzerland, but shouldn't we rather encourage the modernization of the grid as well as the improvement of energy storage?
Increasing electricity production from renewable resources is necessary and is a key issue. Production must indeed be increased by about 2.4 TWh each year from now until 2035. That corresponds to the annual consumption of 500,000 households in Switzerland.
This transition to renewables will decarbonize our energy, reduce our dependence on imports and ensure more stable prices for our customers. It will also meet growing energy needs related, for example, to electric mobility and the increase in the number of heat pumps. The Parliament and the Federal Council are therefore right to put in place the framework conditions that favour their development, for example with shorter authorization procedures.
The winter of 2022-2023 highlighted the fragility of our energy supply and raised awareness of the consequences of a shortage: restrictions and higher electricity tariffs. Therefore, sufficient domestic electricity production must be ensured.
This transition to renewables will decarbonize our energy, reduce our dependence on imports and ensure more stable prices for our customers.
Regarding seasonal storage, apart from dams which already allow reserves to be kept for the winter, alternative technologies are not yet mature. Hydrogen currently plays a role in decarbonizing heavy mobility, but technological developments are still needed for this type of energy storage to be effective in winter. It is therefore important to have a good energy mix, notably thanks to wind energy to fill winter shortfalls.
The development of renewable energies is accompanied by a necessary overhaul of the electricity grid. Decentralized production, notably photovoltaic, the development of local self-consumption clusters, and the need to have communicative, even remotely controllable, networks are all requirements necessary for the energy transition.
As an electricity distributor, Groupe E makes significant annual investments to renew and adapt its power grid to the new electricity flows. In addition, Groupe E is implementing a "smart grid" strategy that will enable the power grid to support the energy transition while limiting the increase in investments.
It is therefore through a set of measures that the energy transition can be accelerated, from production to distribution and consumption.
Isn't it shocking that the Confederation is considering throttling solar production because the grid is not sufficiently adapted to absorb all that energy?
Electricity cannot be stored - or only to a limited extent. The grid can transmit a very large amount of photovoltaic electricity, but it is not adapted to injection peaks occurring during a few hours of the year. Reinforcing the grid for these rare moments would be technically possible, but very expensive, without real added value in a cost-benefit balance.
It is important to be able to connect a large number of photovoltaic installations to the electricity grid while limiting costs for all our customers; this is possible by adjusting the feed-in of this solar energy during a few hours of the year. It is therefore a question of finding a fair balance between the costs of the grid and the benefits through appropriate grid sizing.
All technologies are available and we have enough water, sun and wind to achieve it.
The new provisions planned in the Electricity Act will allow management of photovoltaic production peaks, which will be very beneficial for all producers, for distributors, but also for all consumers.
As a producer and distributor, what are your expectations of the public authorities to get out of this impasse?
We have expectations on the following points:
In your experience, are the targets set by politicians in terms of the energy transition always realistic, achievable or, on the contrary, still very hypothetical?
The targets set by politics are ambitious, but achievable. All technologies are available and we have enough water, sun and wind to achieve them. But we must now clearly accelerate the movement, by developing the production of new energies more rapidly and by decarbonizing our consumption. At the vote on June 9, a clear YES emerged from the ballot boxes, a sign that the Swiss want the energy transition.
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