The Swiss solar industry is growing again. At the Battery Congress in Baden on 20 October 2026, the industry association Swissolar presented the third edition of its Solarmonitor. Its central message: solar power output in Switzerland will almost double by 2030, and battery storage is the fastest-growing part of the market. Both are good news for the energy transition. But the figures also show where the next bottleneck lies: batteries move solar power from noon into the evening, not from July into January.

The key figures

  • Production: Swiss solar plants generated 7.9 TWh in 2025. Under Swissolar’s minimum scenario, this rises to 14.7 TWh by 2030, lifting solar’s share of final electricity consumption from 14 to 24 per cent. For 2026, Swissolar expects 17 per cent. The federal scenario even assumes 30 per cent by 2030.
  • Market: Turnover from photovoltaics and battery storage fell from a record CHF 3.6 billion in 2023 and CHF 3.4 billion in 2024 to CHF 2.7 billion in 2025. By 2030, it is expected to return to at least CHF 3.6 billion, with full-time jobs rising from more than 11,000 to around 14,900.
  • Batteries: Battery storage turnover is set to double to CHF 600 million in 2026 alone.
  • New capacity: Swissolar expects 1.3 GW of newly installed capacity in 2026 and 1.6 GW in 2030, below the record 1.8 GW of 2024. Smaller rooftop systems are declining, façade installations are growing. The federal scenario under the Electricity Act assumes 3.3 GW per year by 2030; according to Swissolar, that will require rapidly improved framework conditions.

Swissolar draws a confident conclusion and has rebranded itself around it: solar is no longer one alternative among others – “Solar ist alternativlos”, solar has no alternative, as the association puts it in its press release. Its focus is shifting from producing energy to a secure year-round supply with a high share of solar power.

Batteries solve the day, not the season

The boom in battery storage is welcome. Batteries raise self-consumption, relieve distribution grids and flatten the midday peak. But they work on a daily cycle: charged at noon, discharged in the evening and at night. The structural challenge of a solar-heavy electricity system is a different one. Swiss solar plants deliver the bulk of their output in the summer half-year, while demand – driven by heat pumps and electric mobility – peaks in winter.

A simple calculation shows the scale. Shifting just one terawatt-hour from summer into winter with batteries would require 100 million home batteries of 10 kWh each, charged once and held full for months. That is neither economical nor what batteries are built for. As solar output heads towards 15 TWh, the question is not whether Switzerland will have a summer surplus, but what it does with it.

Power-to-X turns the summer surplus into a winter reserve

This is where Power-to-X comes in. Electrolysers can run when solar output is high and prices are low, absorbing the midday and summer peaks instead of letting them be curtailed. The resulting hydrogen – or its derivatives such as methanol or methane, made from renewable energy with recycled CO₂ – can be stored for months in tanks and existing gas infrastructure. In winter, it can be turned back into electricity and heat, or used directly where electrification reaches its limits: in aviation, shipping, heavy transport and industry.

Swiss pilots already show how this works on a local scale. In Bassersdorf and Horgen, summer solar power is being stored as methanol to supply heat and electricity in winter, as we reported in Summer sun in a methanol tank. Such projects turn a growing solar fleet from a seasonal problem into a year-round asset.

Solar and Power-to-X need each other

The Solarmonitor makes the case for faster solar expansion, and SPIN supports it. Cheap summer electricity is the foundation of competitive green hydrogen and e-fuels in Switzerland. Conversely, every electrolyser that runs on surplus solar power makes additional solar plants more valuable, because their summer output finds a buyer instead of depressing prices or being curtailed. Batteries, electrolysers and seasonal storage are not competitors – they cover different time scales of the same system.

Swissolar rightly calls for better framework conditions to reach the federal expansion path. The same applies to the other half of the equation. For Power-to-X to absorb Switzerland’s summer surplus at scale, it needs fair grid-fee treatment for electrolysers that act as flexible loads, a clear framework for seasonal storage, and recognition of renewable fuels in defossilisation policy.

Conclusion

Solar power is on track to cover a quarter of Swiss electricity consumption by 2030, and batteries will smooth its daily rhythm. The season, however, cannot be bridged with batteries alone. If solar has no alternative, as Swissolar says, it also needs a partner for winter. Power-to-X is that partner: it turns July sunshine into January energy and into the molecules needed to defossilise sectors that cannot be electrified.

Sources: Swissolar, “Mehr Versorgungssicherheit mit Solarstrom und Batteriespeichern” (20 October 2026); Swissolar, Solarmonitor Schweiz 2026; punkt4.info, “Swissolar rechnet mit wachsendem Umsatz bei Solarstrom und Speichern” (23 October 2026); Federal Act on a Secure Electricity Supply from Renewable Energies (Electricity Act).

🤖 AI transparency: This text and its visual were created using AI, reviewed and approved by a human.