Swissgrid

Swissgrid AG
Aktiengesellschaft
Founded 2005
Headquarters Laufenburg, Aargau, Switzerland
Key people
 Yves Zumwald (CEO)
Adrian Bult (Chairman of the Board of Directors)
Number of employees
 450 (31.12.2016)
Website www.swissgrid.ch

Swissgrid, based in Laufenburg, Frick, Prilly and Lausanne, is the Swiss transmission grid operator. It is subject to supervision by the Swiss Federal Electricity Commission ElCom.

History

Swissgrid was established in January 2005 by Switzerland’s main electricity grid companies as part of the liberalisation of the electricity market. From 15 December 2006 Swissgrid coordinated Switzerland's transmission grid (380/220 kV), comprised up to that point of eight control areas. With the changeover on the night of 31 December 2008 to 1 January 2009 from eight control areas to one zone covering the whole of Switzerland, Swissgrid took over the operation of the entire 6,700-kilometre extra high-voltage grid.[1] When the transfer was entered in the commercial register on 3 January 2013, Swissgrid became the new owner of the Swiss transmission grid.[2] Swiss transmission system operator Swissgrid has since been responsible not only for the operation of the transmission grid but also for its maintenance, renewal and expansion. The statutory requirement was thus met for the electricity companies to have completed the transfer of the transmission grid to Swissgrid by 1 January 2013 at the latest.

Organisation

Swissgrid includes four corporate divisions: Grid, Market, Technology and Corporate Services. The members of the Executive Board are:

The Electricity Supply Act requires that the majority of Members and the Chairman of the Board of Directors, as well as the Members of the Executive, do not belong to the boards of any legal entities which are engaged in activities in the fields of electricity generation or sales, or are in a service-provision relationship with any such legal entities. At present the Board of Directors is made up of five independents and four industry representatives. The Chairman of the Board of Directors is appointed from among the independents.

Shareholders

Cooperative ventures

In the context of the European exchange of electricity, the company was a member of the European grid association, the "Union for the Coordination of Transmission of Electricity" (UCTE) and of the organisation of the European transmission grid operators (European Transmission System Operators, ETSO). These two associations have now been merged into the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity (ENTSO-E), which was established in December 2008 in Prague and took up its operational role in the summer of 2009. Swissgrid is also a member of the TSO Security Cooperation (TSC)[3] and since November 2010 it has been a shareholder of the Capacity Allocation Service Company[4] (CASC).

KPIs of the Swiss transmission grid

The Swiss transmission grid, 6,700 km in length, operates at voltages of 220 kilovolts and 380 kilovolts and a frequency of 50 Hz. It has 141 substations and 12,000 electricity pylons. The electricity transported in 2016 amounted to 73‘775 Gigawatt hours (GWh).

Cost-covering remuneration for feed-in to the electricity grid

On behalf of the federal government, Swissgrid handles the receipt and administration of the cost-covering remuneration for feed-in to the electricity grid (CRF), i.e. the surcharges on the transmission costs for high-voltage grids. Swissgrid established the foundation for cost-covering remuneration for feed-in to the electricity grid (CRF) for this purpose.

References

  1. ↑ Swissgrid - History
  2. ↑ Swissgrid takes over the Swiss transmission grid
  3. ↑ TSO Security Cooperation: Who we are
  4. ↑ CASC: Bottleneck management in Europe
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