The Swiss Parliament’s cross-party platform for hydrogen and Power-to-X has a new name. The «Parlamentarische Gruppe Wasserstoff / Power-to-X» is now the «Parlamentarische Gruppe Energieversorgungssicherheit», in English the Parliamentary Group on Energy Supply Security. The group announced the change, together with a new co-presidency, in its first newsletter of 2026 on 16 September, during Parliament’s autumn session.
It is the second rename in the group’s short history. Founded in 2021 as the Parliamentary Group Hydrogen, it added Power-to-X to its name in 2023, a step we welcomed at the time because green hydrogen and Power-to-X cannot be considered separately. Now the group is moving from naming a technology to naming a task.
What changes
According to the newsletter, the reason is the scale of the transformation ahead. Rising electricity demand, climate targets and geopolitical uncertainty mean that Swiss energy supply faces a fundamental restructuring. The central task, as the group puts it, is to provide energy that is secure, affordable, resilient and climate-compatible over the long term. A platform named after one technology fits that task less well than a platform named after the goal.
The leadership changes as well. Martin Bäumle (GLP/ZH), Severin Brüngger (FDP/SH) and Monika Rüegger (SVP/OW) now form the co-presidency. Maja Riniker (FDP/AG) and Martin Candinas (Die Mitte/GR) have stepped down because their political focus is increasingly shifting to policy areas outside energy. The secretariat remains with Farner Consulting in Bern.
Not a farewell to Power-to-X
The group is explicit that the rebranding is not a goodbye to hydrogen and Power-to-X. Instead, both are placed in the wider context in which they actually have an effect. Power-to-X makes renewable electricity storable, links energy sectors and helps to balance seasonal fluctuations. Hydrogen, synthetic gases and renewable fuels therefore remain building blocks of both the energy transition and security of supply, and the group says its established Power-to-X expertise will be carried forward and complemented by new perspectives, partnerships and solutions.
The framing it chooses is one SPIN has argued for from the start. The transition, the newsletter says, runs along three complementary energy carriers. Liquid molecules remain indispensable wherever high energy density, transportability and long-term storage matter. Gaseous molecules offer storability and flexibility. Electrons carry the growing electrification. What makes the system robust is not competition between them but their intelligent interplay, with grids and storage taken into account, and Power-to-X is the bridge between electrons on one side and gaseous and liquid molecules on the other.
From targets to implementation
The group sees the political debate shifting from goals to delivery. How does Switzerland secure its winter supply? Which infrastructure, storage and grids does it need? How can domestic production and imports be combined without creating new one-sided dependencies? Questions like these, it argues, call for a systemic and technology-open perspective.
The timing is apt. On 2 September the Federal Council adopted its report on synthetic energy carriers and seasonal storage and concluded that Power-to-X will play only a limited role in Swiss winter electricity supply. That conclusion looks at electricity alone. A parliamentary group that starts from energy supply as a whole, with heat, mobility and industry included, is asking a broader and more useful question.
Three perspectives on getting through the winter
The first newsletter under the new name puts exactly that question to three representatives of the energy industry, and their answers map neatly onto the picture of molecules and electrons.
Olivier Fantino of Avenergy Suisse, the association of the Swiss fuel industry, points out that most of the energy used in winter for heat and mobility comes from liquid and gaseous carriers, so thinking only about a winter electricity gap is too narrow. Decentralised tanks and compulsory stocks cover roughly four and a half months of average fuel demand, and Switzerland meets only around 30 per cent of its energy needs from domestic sources. He argues that existing import routes, terminals and storage capacity must be secured, not least because the same infrastructure can transport and store more renewable biogenic and synthetic fuels in future.
Daniela Decurtins of the Swiss Gas Industry Association (VSG) calls for a technology-open approach that uses both electrons and molecules. Electricity, she notes, currently covers only about a quarter of Swiss energy supply. Renewable gases such as biomethane and, in future, renewable hydrogen and Power-to-X can store energy seasonally and use existing infrastructure. What Switzerland still lacks are large seasonal storage facilities that make renewable energy from the summer months available in winter.
Nicolas Crettenand, writing for Alpiq and the Association of Swiss Electricity Companies (VSE), stresses that winter security is decided years in advance, not in December. For the power sector he names storage and pumped-storage hydropower as the backbone, alongside further renewables, batteries for short-term flexibility, grid expansion, faster permitting, the long-term operation of the Gösgen and Leibstadt nuclear plants and an electricity agreement with the EU. His proposed yardstick for every energy policy measure: does it deliver electricity when Switzerland needs it most?
The Power-to-X test
That yardstick is a good one, and it can be widened: does a measure deliver energy, whether electrons or molecules, when Switzerland needs it most? That is precisely the job Power-to-X does. It turns surplus summer electricity into molecules that can be stored for months and used in winter, as the methanol project in Bassersdorf and Horgen is now testing in practice.
One point deserves sharpening in the debate the group now hosts. Hydrogen contains no carbon, but synthetic methane, methanol, e-diesel and e-SAF do, which is why decarbonisation is the wrong target for them and defossilisation the right one. One condition remains non-negotiable from a Power-to-X perspective: synthetic fuels and gases only make climate sense when the carbon they contain is recycled CO₂ from biogenic, atmospheric or industrial sources, and when that recycling displaces fossil carbon instead of providing a reason to burn more of it. The problem is fossil carbon, not molecules.
What the new name means
A broader name brings more stakeholders to the table: oil, gas, electricity, industry, mobility and research. That is an opportunity. Power-to-X no longer has to be presented as a niche technology looking for a use case; it can be discussed where it belongs, as part of the answer to Switzerland’s questions about winter supply, storage and import dependency. The task for the Power-to-X community is to make sure that the expertise the group promises to carry forward is actually heard among the many voices. SPIN is well placed to contribute: we already work closely with all three co-presidents in the political process in both the National Council and the Council of States. More about this within the next two weeks.
The newsletter closes with a line that could serve as the group’s motto: security of supply is not decreed, it is built, plant by plant, grid by grid and generation by generation. We congratulate the new co-presidents, thank Maja Riniker and Martin Candinas for their commitment to hydrogen and Power-to-X, and look forward to continuing the dialogue. Many of the same questions, from the Federal Council’s Power-to-X reports to winter supply, will be on the agenda at the Power-to-X Congress Switzerland 2026 in Bern on 22 September.
Sources: Newsletter 1/2026 of the Parlamentarische Gruppe Energieversorgungssicherheit, 16 September 2026; Lobbywatch profile of the group.
🤖 AI transparency: This text and its visual were created using AI, reviewed and approved by a human.
Power-to-X Congress Switzerland 2026 — «Reality Check with Net Zero». Join us on 22 September 2026, 10–18h, at the Kursaal Bern. Co-organised by energie-cluster.ch and SPIN, with partner Réseau H2 Suisse Romande. Learn more and register →