Christoph, what are the key components of Axpo's diversified portfolio today?
Axpo is a century-old company, originally founded as an electrical power producer in Switzerland. Today we have a much more diverse portfolio, operating in over 30 countries on three continents, with a special focus on Europe. We are Switzerland's largest producer of renewable energy, an international leader in energy trading and a significant player in European solar and onshore wind power. Our assets include onshore wind farms, large- and small-scale PV projects, hydro, nuclear and gas fired power plants. We believe electricity generation needs to expand substantially over the following decades to help meet decarbonisation targets.
Axpo’s electricity mix consists of hydropower, biomass, solar, wind, and nuclear. Do you believe that the future of energy would be a combination of all these sources?
Energy sources are highly dependent on geographical locations and while there is no one-size-fits-all solution, it seems likely that thanks to their cost benefits, PV solar and wind will gain a much bigger share of the energy mix overall.
Hydropower opportunities differ significantly between countries and many of the most productive dams were built many years ago. With inconsistent climate conditions, controllable energy forms will continue to play an important role in the future. Bearing that in mind, some countries embraced nuclear power while others placed the focus on (eventually renewable) gas fired power plants. Thankfully, today we have more than enough technological solutions to generate carbon-free electricity.
What is Axpo’s vision for the future of nuclear energy sources, given their disputed nature?
At the end of the day, nuclear electricity generation has a very low carbon footprint, so it can justifiably be considered a green technology. Although it is not renewable like wind or solar, we’re fortunate to have the current nuclear plants which produce significant amounts of clean power, and they use next to no land. Keeping these nuclear facilities operational for as long as they are safe gives us time to rapidly expand renewable energies. Whether nuclear power will remain part of the energy mix depends mainly on the will of the society of each country. In Finland, for example, a majority of citizens agree with nuclear power. As producers, we can simply outline the pros and cons (and the price tag) of each energy source, and let each country decide its own path.
Did the war in Ukraine and ensuing gas shortages lead to a more favourable consideration of nuclear power?
This conflict intensified the discussion about the future of nuclear. But the current development process for nuclear plants still takes much longer than putting up wind farms, for instance. Even in China, which has an enthusiastic nuclear market, renewable sources are set to capture a much bigger share of power production.
Infrastructure, public acceptance, and storage are the biggest challenges for the renewable landscape today. What's Axpo's stance on these?
Long-term storage solutions are as of today still the Achilles heel of renewable technologies. Today there is no commercially viable option for transferring large amounts of energy from summer to winter. Various options are being tested in the market (for example, turning electrolysed hydrogen into methane).
We are also actively pursuing storage technologies, including large-scale battery storage, hydrogen solutions as well as reservoir storage. Unfortunately, we see and face major obstacles to the expansion of renewable energies, especially when it comes to the approval procedures in Switzerland and selected European countries. Individual projects encounter significant delays due to opposition from various corners. We urgently need a societal consensus about which compromises we’re willing to accept in order to produce much more electricity to reach our climate goals.
Tell us about your AlpinSolar project. More generally, what does alpine solar production entail?
The AlpinSolar project, 2,500 meters above sea level, is a good example of the advantages of constructing solar plants in the mountains. Thanks to its elevated position in the Alps, the project benefits from much more sun in the winter, colder temperatures are ideal for the panels, and increased reflection from the snow means more power in the colder months. This plant can produce up to 50% of its electricity in winter, whereas a traditional PV plant produces a quarter of its annual energy output during the cold season. The installation is relatively small, only slightly larger than a football pitch, but it gave us the confidence in building our next solar plants in the Alps. To reach our climate goals, Switzerland will need between 90 and 100 terawatt hours of green electricity a year by 2050. If we build roughly 80-100 square kilometres of alpine solar projects, these would generate 10 terawatt hours of winter power. The Alps in Switzerland alone have over 20,000 square kilometres potentially available, so it’s not about covering a large surface. Nevertheless, development could be slowed down by – again – opposition from local or environmental groups, lack of grid access and by the fact that we are learning as we go, given there is not much global experience in this space.
What are some of the targets that you would like to achieve at Axpo in the coming years?
We have a clear goal to build a significant number of large-scale PV and onshore wind projects across Europe including our home market Switzerland. In addition, we plan to invest in large-scale battery technologies, hydrogen, and green gases. Thankfully, the variety of technologies available today can replace a great deal of fossil fuels. But we can’t produce and distribute power without placing transmission lines, wind turbines and solar panels across the landscape. Either we accept this aesthetic compromise, or we need to come up with a plan B.
