MET Group, based in the canton of Zug, has analysed Switzerland's wind potential. Now it wants to invest.
Original article in German: NZZ am Sonntag
When meteorologist Vasilis Pappas talks about the Swiss weather, he goes into raptures. He says it is much more varied than in Germany and the UK, where he worked for a long time.
It is mostly overcast and grey there, he says at a meeting at the energy trader MET Group's headquarters in Baar. But in Switzerland there are unusual phenomena such as the Föhn or the Bise. Pappas, who comes from Greece, is particularly fond of the Swiss spring storms.
MET Group is a large private energy trader based in the canton of Zug, which makes most of its money from trading natural gas and electricity. The company employs almost 1000 people and is present in fourteen European countries and Singapore.
Pappas usually analyses the weather in Europe, as this is crucial for energy traders. Sunny and windy days often lead to an oversupply of electricity, causing prices on the electricity exchanges to plummet. Cloudy or windless days have the opposite effect.
Hardly any sailing boats on Lake Zurich
Pappas recently took a closer look at a market that had not previously been a focus for MET Group: Switzerland. Pappas wanted to find out whether the country was suitable for the construction of wind turbines. And whether it is worthwhile for his company to invest.
This is despite the fact that critics are of the opinion that wind energy is unsuitable here. For example, the initiators of the "Stop the blackout" initiative submitted last week, who want to lift the ban on building new nuclear power plants.
"Wind energy is not suitable for electricity production in densely populated and wind-poor Switzerland," it says on their website. Anyone who lives around Lake Zurich knows that "There are hardly any sailing boats because there is hardly any wind."
Is there not enough wind for wind power in Switzerland? Answering this question was a major challenge for Pappas. To do this, he had to simulate wind speed and wind direction. In Switzerland, which is mostly hilly or mountainous, this is much more difficult than in predominantly flat countries such as Germany or the UK.
Pappas therefore based his analysis not only on Swiss weather data. He also fed his computers with extensive figures which had been collected as part of the European Union space programme.
The problem with this was that it resulted in an enormous number of scenarios for the wind situation in Switzerland. Pappas used artificial intelligence to master the mountain of data. He had already used these methods to assess wind energy yields in other European regions. In this way, he managed to reduce the scenarios to a handful that are most likely.
The result: "Switzerland has considerable wind power potential," says Pappas. He believes investments in wind power make sense and there are numerous promising locations. This includes western Switzerland, where most of the 47 existing Swiss wind turbines are located.
There are also high-yield areas elsewhere: for example on the Central Plateau between the Jura and the northern side of the Alps, in the foehn valleys north of the Alps or along the Alpine passes. For comparison: in Austria, which is twice as large in terms of area, there are currently around 1400 wind turbines.
"As a meteorologist, I realised that it can be very windy in the Alps," says Pappas in retrospect. Nevertheless, there were new insights for him, such as the fact that the winds in Switzerland often blow very evenly and change direction relatively rarely. Both are ideal for wind turbines.
According to Pappas, there are other factors that make wind turbines in Switzerland sensible and financially lucrative. They often supply electricity precisely when it is particularly in demand. Most of the yield is generated in winter – in other words, when electricity is scarce in Switzerland because we consume more and hydropower produces less.
In addition, there are often major weather conditions in which the wind and thus the wind energy yield in neighbouring Germany and France decreases, while in Switzerland it starts to blow more strongly. This is due to storms brewing in the Atlantic, which are then deflected towards southern Europe and Switzerland.
Domestic wind power is particularly valuable in such situations. The same applies if Switzerland wants to import electricity, but the necessary capacities at the border are lacking due to its messed-up relationship with Europe – a situation that is likely to become more frequent.
MET Group has therefore decided to invest. It recently acquired a 25 percent stake in the Valais-based wind farm developer Swisswinds. Swisswinds is currently working on projects for several wind farms in Switzerland.
It was not only the analyses of the in-house meteorologist that played a role in the decision, but also insights into the development of technology. Wind turbines have not only become larger and more powerful in recent years. Thanks to technologies that are also used in Formula 1 or the construction of aeroplanes, they can also make better use of weaker winds, as Christian Hürlimann, CEO Renewables at MET Group, explains.
Maintenance is also easier nowadays. This is important because in Switzerland wind turbines are to be built in areas where there are metres of snow in winter. This makes the systems practically inaccessible in the event of damage.
Wind turbine manufacturers are therefore focusing on predictive maintenance, as Hürlimann explains. Sensors measure how cleanly each individual wind turbine is running. Unusual noises, vibrations and temperature fluctuations are analysed using artificial intelligence.
Depending on the result, the programmes recommend replacing components as an anticipatory measure. This is preferably done in summer - when wind energy production is less anyway. This ensures that defects remain the exception during the lucrative winter.
Warnings about flocks of birds
According to Hürlimann, wind turbines have also evolved in other ways. They can be equipped with systems that de-ice the rotors. Warning systems ensure that the turbines are switched off when large flocks of birds are in the vicinity.
Hürlimann says that Switzerland needs a mixture of as many different electricity production technologies as possible. However, he is convinced that, "Wind energy can make an extremely important contribution to the supply in winter."
Other investors share this view. A few months ago, the electricity company Axpo announced its intention to build more wind farms in Switzerland. Interest is also growing among customers. A large Swiss industrial company has already contacted Christian Hürlimann. It would like to buy the wind energy produced in Switzerland from MET to make its local factories as CO2-neutral as possible.
For Hürlimann it is therefore clear: "We want to build more wind turbines at interesting locations in Switzerland." He does not yet want to say exactly where.