The revised Energy Act stipulates that electricity production from renewable energies must be increased by at least 5.4 billion kilowatt hours by 2030. This corresponds to around 10% of current electricity consumption (2007: 57.4 billion kilowatt hours). For this purpose, the Energy Act contains a package of measures aimed at promoting renewable energies and energy efficiency in the electricity sector, the mainstay of which is the compensatory feed-in remuneration scheme for electricity generated from renewable energies.

To finance the compensatory feed-in remuneration, from 1 January 2009 an extra charge will be levied for every kilowatt hour consumed. The Energy Act (Article 15b Paragraph 4) stipulates that this extra charge must not exceed 0.6 cents and will be set at an appropriate level each year by the Federal Office of Energy.

The Federal Office of Energy today announced that the surcharge for 2009 will be 0.45 cents per kilowatt hour. This will generate around 258 million Swiss francs to finance all the measures set out in the Energy Act. Of this, around 90 million francs will be allocated to financing additional costs (15 cents per kWh) for the years 2008 and 2009 in accordance with Article 28a of the revised Energy Act. In 2009, compensatory feed-in remuneration will demand around 80 million francs. The remainder will be channelled into provisions for risk insurance for geothermal projects (Energy Act, Article 15a) and reserves for reimbursements to large-scale consumers (Energy Ordinance, Article 3l).

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