Find answers to money-related questions about the use and cost of electricity in Switzerland in this moneyland.ch guide.
Here, moneyland.ch answers the most important financial questions about the supply and cost of electricity in Switzerland.
How much does electricity cost in Switzerland?
In Switzerland, you can only buy electricity from the one power company that has the monopoly for your address. Prices vary hugely between different power companies. In the cheapest municipalities, you pay just over 10 centimes per kilowatt-hour (kWh). In the most expensive municipalities, you pay more than 50 centimes per kilowatt-hour. The average (median) price across all Swiss power companies is 32 centimes per kilowatt-hour.
What is included in a Swiss electric bill?
In Switzerland, your electric bill is made up of these different elements:
Which factors determine the price you pay for electricity in Switzerland?
This varies greatly between Switzerland’s 600 different power companies. Local utility companies are limited with regard to the profit they can make, as legal stipulations govern the way they calculate electricity prices for households that fall under their monopolies – that is, to homes which are connected to their power grids. The reason why many power companies still make high profits is because many electricity producers sell surplus electricity on energy exchanges.
Power companies cannot simply choose how high their electricity prices will be. They price at which they sell electricity has to be calculated based on the actual costs of generating or buying electricity, and on the actual costs of maintaining their power grid.
In order to understand how electricity prices are determined, it helps to understand the two different models used in Switzerland.
Numerous Swiss power companies buy all of their electricity from other companies, or on energy exchanges. Even power companies that have their own power plants also buy part of their electricity from other companies or through exchanges.
The fees charged for the use of the power grid vary. The cost of building and maintaining power grids is generally lower in cities than in sparsely-settled mountainous regions. Additionally, each municipality and/or canton sets its own fees.
Is electricity included in my rent?
Typically, electricity is not covered by your rent or by the supplementary rental costs you pay along with your rent. You receive an electric bill from the power company for the electricity consumed in your home. In some cases, the electricity which you use for communal appliances (laundry rooms, for example) is also included in your electric bill. That is the case when each home in an apartment house or condominium has its own key, card, or dongle that is required to use shared appliances.
Electricity is rarely included in the rent in Switzerland.
In apartments, the cost of electricity used for communal areas is normally included in your supplementary rental costs. That includes electricity used for lighting in staircases, for elevators, and by shared laundry appliances (if electricity is not billed separately using a key, card, or dongle). Electricity used for heating and hot water is also included in the supplementary rental costs. This is the case with electricity used for heat pumps, electronic heat regulating systems, and electric water boilers.
Can I switch to a different power company?
Private homes in Switzerland cannot pick between different power suppliers. Although there are over 600 different Swiss power companies, you cannot choose your electricity provider yourself. You are limited to using the local power company that holds the monopoly for your address.
Only business customers that consume more than 100,000 kilowatt-hours per year are free to choose between different power companies.
How can I save money using the available options?
Some power companies let you choose between several different offers. Typically, the main difference between offers is the way in which the electricity is generated. If the cost of electricity is more important to you than sustainable energy, then you can save money by switching to the cheapest offer which uses cheaply-produced electricity like nuclear energy.
How can I cut the cost of my electric bill?
You can save money by using less electricity. However, the impact of power-saving measures varies. The biggest consumers of electricity are heating elements (stoves, ovens, electric heaters) and cooling elements (refrigerators, deep freezers, air conditioning). If your home still uses its own water boiler, that will push up your electric bill as well. So changing your use of heating and cooling elements is the primary way to lower your electric bill.
Other power-saving measures, like using LED lighting and switching off electronic devices completely, have a relatively small impact on your overall power consumption.
How can I find out how much electricity a device consumes?
There are special tools that let you measure power consumption. These normally measure power consumption in watts. It is worth testing the different modes or cycles that your appliances offer, as power consumption can vary depending on the way you use an appliance. Normally, devices use less power when they are in standby mode than when they are running. Your computer will more electricity to play a video in the high definition 4K format than in a lower resolution. A vacuum cleaner consumes more electricity when you run it on full power.
Another way to tell how much power a device uses is to check its label. Normally, this shows the power in watts. This method is not as precise as using a measurement tool, because the watts shown are normally a maximum value. The actual power consumption is often lower.
Whether you use a measuring tool or check the label, you will have to convert the value into kilowatt-hours. To do this, divide the number of watts shown by 1000. The resulting figure is the number of kilowatt-hours consumed in one hour. Multiply this figure by the number of hours that the device runs throughout one year to find out approximately how much electricity that device will consume in one year.
How can I save money with prices for off-peak hours?
Some power companies use two different prices: One for peak hours, and one for off-peak hours. You pay a lower price for the electricity you use during off-peak hours, such as at night and/or on Sundays. If your power company uses this system, then you can save money by only using power-intensive appliances like washing machines and dryers during off-peak hours, as much as possible.
How can I avoid buying “dirty” electricity?
Due to the laws of physics, electricity will always travel along the shortest possible route. So if the power stations closest to you produce non-sustainable energy, there is no way to avoid using this “dirty” electricity.
However, you can choose to buy sustainable electricity as a way of supporting the production of sustainable energy. By doing this, you help to promote the growth of sustainable energy in Switzerland over the mid-term to long-term.
How can I buy sustainable electricity?
Many Swiss power companies let you choose between several different offers. In many cases, what makes the offers different is the amount of sustainable electricity included. These offers are often complicated, so getting consultation is beneficial.
Some power companies also give you the option of participating in solar power projects. The Elektrizitätswerk der Stadt Zürich (EWZ), for example, gives you the option of paying 250 francs per square meter towards the cost of solar panels constructed on a specific building (a school, for example). For each square meter of solar panels you sponsor, you receive 80 kilowatt-hours of electricity per year for 20 years.
Some power companies also sell solar power packages, which include a certain number of kilowatt-hours. These provide a way to boost the sustainable portion of your power consumption.
Some Swiss power companies give you the option of paying them for the added value they provide by generating renewable energy and feeding it into the power grid. You continue to buy electricity from your local power company, but in addition to that, you voluntarily pay the renewable energy supplier a certain amount as well.
What is subsidized electricity?
In Switzerland, you have to pay a tax of 2.3 centimes for every kilowatt-hour of electricity that you receive over the power grid. This money goes into a fund that is used to subsidize electricity produced in sustainable ways. You have to pay for this renewable energy regardless of where in Switzerland you live, and no matter which offer you use.
In 2022, this subsidized renewable energy made up 6.1 percent of the total electricity consumed in Switzerland. Around 2.9 percent of consumed electricity came from subsidized hydropower, nearly 1.4 percent from subsidized biomass energy, 1.2 percent from subsidized solar energy, 0.4 percent from renewable household waste, and 0.2 percent from wind turbines.
How can I find out where my electricity comes from?
The electricity mix shows what percentages of the power supplied to your home are generated by hydropower, solar power, wind turbines, biomass, renewable household waste, geothermal power, subsidized electricity, nuclear energy, petroleum, natural gas, coal, and non-renewable household waste.
This is the electricity mix for Switzerland as a whole (as per 2022, including subsidized electricity):
Coal (0.7 percent) and natural gas (0.5 percent) make up a relatively negligible portion of the Swiss electricity mix.
Each local power company has its own electricity mix. Depending on the power company, the mix can be very different from the figures for Switzerland as a whole. In Switzerland, power companies are legally obligated to inform their customers about their electricity mix once a year, and to publish this information online. You can look up your provider’s electricity mix on strom.ch.
Can I produce my own solar power?
If you own a house, you can have solar panels installed on the property. If you are interested in having your own solar panels, check into the government subsidies and possible tax deductions that you may be eligible for.
If you use the electricity yourself right as it is generated (to charge an electric vehicle, for example), then you do not pay any fees for the use of the power grid, and you do not pay the sustainable energy tax. You can channel surplus electricity into the public power grid, and receive compensation for this. The compensation varies broadly between grid operators.
If you own an apartment, then things are more complicated. Normally, all of the condominium’s owners must jointly agree on a solar power generation plan.
Installing solar panels as a renter is complicated. However, some power companies give renters the option of participating in solar power schemes. In this case, the electricity you use comes from a nearby solar panel installation instead of from your own solar panels.
Regardless of whether you own or rent your home, you can invest in solar power projects, and thus help to promote the development of solar energy in Switzerland.
More on this topic:
How to save on expenses in Switzerland
How to save electricity and money
This is how much water you could save every day
How to get cheaper housing in Switzerland
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