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According to an ETH study, the Mittelland is ideal for wind energy. However, the current spatial planning requirements remain the major hurdle.
If Switzerland wants to achieve its energy targets by 2050, then it also needs many more wind turbines. By then, seven percent of the electricity should come from wind energy. Today it is just 0.3 percent. But where should these systems be built?
A recent study by ETH Zurich wanted to find out where wind turbines would be least controversial and where spatial planning should progress more quickly. The result: mainly in the area between Lake Biel and Lake Geneva, including on fertile farmland, such as the Seeland.
Greater acceptance in built-up areas
In this area the wind blows strongly and the land is no longer untouched. For this reason, the acceptance of the systems would probably also be greater.
To prove this, subjects from all over Switzerland were shown pictures of landscapes with and without wind turbines. At the same time, their emotions were read using a lie detector.
Legend:
Wind turbines in the canton of Bern.
KEYSTONE/Gaetan Bally
Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, head of the study, explains: “If an area is already built up, i.e. already has a kind of impairment, then the locations were rated more as good than in the case of untouched mountain landscapes.”
Sacrifice farmland for wind energy?
Wind farms between Lake Biel and Lake Geneva: It could also affect the farmland of the Seeland. That would not be good news for the association of vegetable producers in the cantons of Bern and Fribourg. Board member Thomas Wyssa says: “We really have the best arable land here, producing up to 25 percent of Swiss vegetables here. You ask yourself: do you want to sacrifice this soil?”
Grêt-Regamey says: “Of course you have to remember that we are talking about important areas for security of supply.” The aim is to ensure that as little soil as possible is destroyed. But she emphasizes that with large systems in the area in question, you can do without many other systems in Switzerland – for example in the mountain regions.
In Switzerland we have a potential of 50 percent of our electricity consumption.
According to Suisse Eole, an association of wind energy stakeholders, one should not do without suitable locations for wind energy. Media spokeswoman Anita Niederhäusern says: “We have a potential of 50 percent of our electricity consumption in Switzerland.” The problem is primarily the long planning and approval procedures of up to two decades before construction can begin. NiederHAUSEN: “We’re not getting anywhere like this!”
But in any case, spatial planning would stand in the way of possible wind turbines on farmland today. In the current federal wind concept, for example, the construction of wind turbines is very limited to particularly valuable crop rotation areas.
Suisse Eole and the ETH agree: Approval procedures must be changed. However, there is still a long way to go before the wind turbines in Seeland can be found.