Small, Large Contributions to Energy System Transformation
Transformation in practice: The third day of the Powertage event focuses on the concrete implementation of the energy transition. At its heart is the power of the small scale.
Text: Bruno Habegger ⁄ energieinside.ch
In the early days of the electricity industry, electricity remained a local commodity. It was only transmitted over short distances. Small power plants and isolated grids characterized the supply. It wasn't until the end of the 19th century that long transmission lines became possible: high voltage and transformers reduced losses. In the USA, alternating current had prevailed in the "War of Currents." The first large-scale power plants followed at the beginning of the 20th century. The grid had to be built for them first, initially on a regional basis. It was only from the 1950s onwards that the Swiss grids were step-by-step interconnected and linked with foreign countries.
Today, development is turning around once again. A CO2-neutral Switzerland needs a decentralized system that integrates renewable production and new consumers – and seeks flexibility not only in large plants but also makes it usable on a small scale.
What flexibility means
The energy system transformation is not a clearly defined large-scale project. It is distributed across thousands of installations, buildings, grid nodes, and user decisions. The more renewable production enters the system, the less electricity follows the classic pattern of large power plants. Instead, generation is becoming more dynamic, depending on factors like the weather. Flexibility arises decentrally – guided by many small and some large control levers.
Flexibility means: ramping power up, ramping it down, shifting it, storing it – or even consciously not consuming it at times. In the future energy system, power is not just delivered but constantly balanced. This happens on various time scales: seconds to minutes for frequency, hours to days for solar peaks, weeks and seasons for longer lulls. For every scale, suitable tools are needed. And this is exactly where it shows: Small and large flexibilities are not opposites, but part of the new renewable energy system.
Cooperation in practice
There are many actors and technologies that must be integrated into the new energy system with a new approach based on small and large flexibilities. Whether it's an electric car charging overnight, a well-adjusted heat pump, or a building with an energy management system (EMS): the new energy system is a finely tuned energy machine in which large flexibilities also exert their effect. Data centers, large battery storage units, pumped-storage power plants, or Power-to-X plants, for example. They can move large amounts of energy, react faster, and are often easier to integrate into markets. Large-scale battery storage units, in particular, show how strongly a single asset can support grid stability: frequency maintenance, peak shaving, congestion management – all in one. Many things must fit together. It requires digitalization, standards, and incentives, such as dynamic tariffs and grid-serving installations. Shifting loads must bring real benefits and thus keep the grid stable as a side effect. The interaction is crucial. Small flexibilities are close to consumption and thus ideal for relieving local grids. Large flexibilities act system-wide and can absorb fluctuations in the overall system. When both interact cleanly, the costs of transformation fall. It is possible with intelligence: recently, on May 23, 2026, at 12 p.m., according to Swiss Energy Charts, 94 percent of Switzerland's total electricity consumption was covered by solar power.
Ultimately, the energy system transformation is a coordination project. Successful projects are created not only through technology but through the interplay of actors, processes, and framework conditions. These experiences will be pooled and linked together in the forum of the third Powertage day.
Three projects in a reality check
Three energy system transformation projects will undergo a reality check on June 18th starting at 9 a.m., and the success factors of decentralized contributions to the new energy system will be identified in a subsequent discussion.
The Uri Wind Farm, for example, is considered a model of success. energieUri began its development in 2019, and it has been in operation since November 2025. Two wind turbines with a total capacity of 4.6 megawatts achieve an annual production of approximately 8.5 gigawatt-hours of renewable energy. "With a winter share of around 60 percent, the new wind turbines provide important energy during the cold season – exactly when such renewable electricity is needed," said Werner Jauch, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Windpark Uri AG, at the most recent general assembly. He and Olivier Waldvogel, head of the German-speaking Switzerland office of the Suisse Eole association, will demonstrate how the construction of the wind farm succeeded on the second attempt.
The award-winning Papieri Cham project – the first 2000-Watt site in the Canton of Zug – demonstrates the current potential of small-scale hydropower. Almost half of the local electricity demand for living and working is produced by hydropower and photovoltaics. The existing run-of-river power plant in the Lorze – licensed over 360 years ago – delivers 1,250 MWh of baseload electricity annually. The photovoltaic systems contribute a further 1,110 MWh in the final expansion phase. Fernando Binder, Managing Director of fmb-ingenieure.ch, and Martin Bölli, Managing Director of Swiss Small Hydro, present the project to which small-scale hydropower makes a significant contribution: the relatively constant current contributes to the site's self-sufficiency, especially in winter.
The Morgeten innovation project, planned since autumn 2022 and already approved, is intended to one day deliver 12 million kWh of solar energy from the Bernese Alps and is still – despite the construction permit already granted – in a further mandatory legal hiatus. In autumn 2025, another appeal forced the case to the Administrative Court. Planning continues. Initiator Christian Haueter and Matthias Egli, Managing Director of Swissolar, explain why giving up is not an option.
