Swiss voters are supporting a referendum to withdraw the country from nuclear power in favor of renewable energy.

A projection from Sunday's referendum shows a majority of cantons (states) voted for the plan. Under Switzerland's direct democracy system, initiatives need a majority of both cantons and votes to pass.

The projection for SRF public television showed 58 percent of voters in favor and 42 percent against the proposal.

The Swiss government wants to ban the construction of new nuclear power plants and decommission the country's five existing ones at the end of their technically safe operating lives.

The plan would also boost renewable energies such as water and wind and make cars and electronic devices more energy efficient.

Opponents warned the initiative would significantly increase electricity bills.</s>The Swiss have used their power of direct democracy to end nuclear power. In a referendum on Sunday (May 21), 58.2% voted in favor of a law that will not allow building of new nuclear plants. The country’s five nuclear plants can continue to operate as long as they are safe.

Switzerland relies heavily on hydro and nuclear to fulfill its electricity needs. Renewable energy forms a tiny fraction of the mix.

The country’s Energy Strategy 2050 law, passed by the referendum, also sets out ambitious goals to reduce carbon emissions. Its aim is to move the country away from nuclear energy and towards more renewable energy. It will provides billions in subsidies to increase the proportion of solar and wind in the mix, and bailing out the country’s hydro power utilities, whose costs exceed Europe’s wholesale power prices.

The law is not without controversy. One question is how much the average Swiss will end up paying for the changes. Energy minister Doris Leuthard said financing renewables will cost an average family 40 Swiss francs ($41) a year. Critics say that the actual cost may be 80 times higher.

The nuclear power industry has taken a beating recently. The Swiss vote follows Germany’s 2011 decision to phase out all 17 nuclear plants by 2022. France’s new president Emmanuel Macron has appointed a nuclear critic as his energy minister (paywall). In March, Westinghouse, a nuclear power giant, filed for bankruptcy after long delays and cost overruns on its American projects had started weighing on its finances.

Read next: We just avoided nuclear disaster. If we don’t act now, we may not be able to avoid the next one.</s>The Swiss have spoken, and nuclear power has been voted out in favor of renewable energy.

On the ballot yesterday (May 21) was the Swiss government's Energy Strategy 2050, a referendum that called for the ban of new nuclear power plants and investment in renewable energy. Under this energy plan, the country's five existing nuclear power plants will remain operational for as long as safety standards are met, The Local, an English-language news network in Europe, explains. Energy production would instead focus on hydropower, according to The Local, along with other renewable energy sources like solar and wind.

Though the votes have not been finalized, the New York Times reported that initial figures show Swiss voters passed the energy plan with 58.2 percent support. The country's direct democracy system gives voters the power to pass major policy issues.

"[The public] wants a new energy policy and does not want any new nuclear plants," Doris Leuthard, the Swiss energy minister, said at a news conference, according to The Times. "The law leads our country into a modern energy future."

Leuthard said the Energy Strategy 2050 will reduce the use of fossil fuels and foreign energy — Switzerland was a net power importer in 2016 — while supporting and expanding domestic production of renewable energy, the Times reported. Though some aspects of the plan will take effect in 2018, a fourfold increase in solar and wind power is targeted for 2035.

Less than 5 percent of Switzerland's current energy production is solar and wind, according to the Times, while hydropower accounts for 60 percent of energy output and nuclear for 35 percent. The nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan, following the major earthquake and tsunami on March 11, 2011, is partly responsible for the lack of support for such energy in Switzerland and the rest of Europe, according to the Times.

In 1978, legislation prohibited nuclear power plants on Austrian territory. After the Fukushima disaster, Germany decided to accelerate its plan to phase out nuclear power, the news site Deutsche Welle reported.

Polls suggest Europe is not alone in this nuclear cold-shoulder: A Gallup poll conducted in 2016 found that the majority of Americans (54 percent) oppose the use of nuclear energy. For comparison, in 2011 just days before the Fukushima disaster, 57 percent of Americans said they were in favor of nuclear energy, Gallup reported.</s>Swiss voters have backed government plans to replace the power from ageing nuclear reactors with renewable energy.

A total of 58.2 per cent of voters supported the phaseout of nuclear energy in a binding referendum on Sunday. Under the Swiss system of direct democracy, voters have the final say on major policy issues.

The plan will provide billions of pounds in subsidies for renewable energy, ban the construction of nuclear plants and decommission the country’s five existing ones, which produce about a third of the country’s electricity.

The first nuclear power plant is earmarked for closure in 2019.

"This is a historic day for the country," Green Party parliamentarian Adele Thorens Goumaz told public broadcaster RTS.

"Switzerland will finally enter into the 21st century when it comes to energy."

The move echoes efforts across Europe to reduce dependence on nuclear energy and has been in the making following Japan’s Fukushima disaster in 2011. Germany has announced it will close all nuclear plants by 2022 and Austria banned it decades ago.

The Swiss government wants to boost hydraulic power as well as solar, wind, geothermal and biomass.

Energy Minister Doris Leuthard, from the centre-right Christian Democratic Party, told reporters at a press conference: "The results shows the population wants a new energy policy and does not want any new nuclear plants. The law leads our country into a modern energy future."

The new law is expected to come into effect at the start of 2018 and Ms Leuthard said the plan would cost the average family about 40 francs (£31.64) more a year because a higher grid surcharge would help to fund renewable subsidies.

But critics to the plan claimed the initiative would significantly increase electricity bills. The country’s largest party, the populist Swiss People’s Party, campaigned against the plan and claimed energy bills could ramp up by an additional 3,200 Swiss francs (£2,532) per four-person household a year.

It said the energy transition will be too expensive, would trigger greater reliance on imported electricity and could disfigure the landscape with more wind turbines and solar panels.

Last November, Swiss voters rejected a plan to speed up the phaseout of coal power plants by limiting their operational lifespan to 45 years, which would have meant three of the five nuclear reactors would have had to close this year.

But most other parties and environmental groups hailed the result of the vote a success.

The new plan does not include a clear timetable for the phaseout of nuclear energy but it aims to cut average energy consumption per person per year by 16 per cent by 2020 and 43 per cent by 2035 compared to 2000 levels.

According to the ATS news agency, only 42.3 per cent of eligible voters cast a ballot in the referendum, a low turnout which yet falls within the average over the past two years.</s>A map of voting in the Swiss cantons showed wide discrepancies in opinions in different parts of the country.

In French-speaking Vaud, in the west of Switzerland, 73 percent of voters supported dumping nuclear power, but in German-speaking Glarus and Schwyz around 56 percent of the electorate wanted to keep it.

Switzerland has five ageing nuclear power stations, which provide 38 percent of the country's energy needs.

Two are at Beznau and the others are at Muhleberg, Gosgen and Leibstadt, all in the north of the country.

The tsunami in Japan in 2011, which led to a major emergency at the Fukushima nuclear power station, signaled the beginning of the end for nuclear power in Switzerland.

In June 2011, the Swiss Parliament resolved to start phasing out nuclear power in 2034. But pressure, led by the Green Party, has grown for an earlier switch to renewables.

As a result of the May 21 referendum, Switzerland will begin phasing out nuclear power in 2019.

With more than a third of the country's power currently coming from nuclear, it will represent a major challenge for the electricity companies to find new sources in such a short time frame.

But the president of Switzerland's Green Party, Regula Rytz, said the vote was a "moment of historic change."

"The Swiss population has said no to the construction of new nuclear power plants and yes to the development of renewable energy. The conditions have also been set whereby the economy and households will need to take responsibility for the future. It's absolutely magnificent," said Rytz.

Energy Minister Doris Leuthard had been urging voters to back the switch to renewables despite the huge cost, which opponents had been highlighting.

"After six years of debate in parliament and at committee level, a new chapter in Switzerland's energy policy can begin," said Leuthard at a news conference. "But there is still a lot of work to do."

The World Nuclear Association says radioactive waste is mostly handled by Zwilag, a company owned by the four Swiss nuclear companies.

Zwilag began using a central interim dry cask storage facility for high-level wastes at Wurenlingen in 2001.

Its Alpine topography and high levels of rainfall makes Switzerland ideal for hydro-electric power generation and it saw a boom between 1945 and 1970, but they remain loss-making enterprises.

Felix Muri, a Swiss politician who had campaigned against shutting down nuclear power prematurely, said he believed the real cost of the switch had been kept from voters and would end up hitting consumers in their pockets.

Switzerland will join Austria, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Poland and Greece, none of whom produce nuclear power.

Last year, the British government controversially gave the go-ahead for a new nuclear power station at Hinkley in Somerset despite security concerns and fundamental design problems.</s>Next Sunday, Swiss voters decide on Energy Strategy 2050, one of the most ambitious energy system transformation projects launched in Europe. It includes the promotion of renewable energies, a sector in which Switzerland has made very little progress in recent years.

Today, Switzerland is one of the European countries with the highest share of electricity produced from renewable sources. It ranks behind Norway – where renewable electricity production even exceeds domestic demand – and Iceland, Austria and Sweden.

But in the case of Switzerland, it should be noted that about 95% of this renewable electricity comes from dams, the vast majority of which goes back to the last century. In the field of new renewable energies, on the other hand, Switzerland is moving much slower than many European countries.



Wind turbines, for example, provided barely 0.17% of the electricity consumed in Switzerland in 2015, compared with an average of 8.3% in the European Union. In Denmark, wind energy already covers more than 40% of electricity needs.

Solar, for its part, provides barely 1.7% of Swiss electricity, compared with 3.2% in the EU as a whole. Belgium and Germany, which enjoy sunshine comparable to that of Switzerland, have already reached rates of 4.7% and 6.1% of solar electricity, respectively.

Taking into account the share of green energy in relation to domestic consumption, it can be seen that between 2005 and 2015, Switzerland registered a growth rate lower than that of most other countries on the continent.</s>ZURICH, May 21 (Reuters) - Swiss voters are set to back the government's plan to provide billions of dollars in subsidies for renewable energy, ban new nuclear plants and help bail out struggling utilities, broadcaster SRG projected.

The level of support in Sunday's referendum "will be above 55 percent and thus far above any area of doubt," pollster Claude Longchamp said, basing the projection on partial results.

Opinion polls had suggested the new energy law would be approved in the binding referendum, but support has slipped in the run-up to the vote.

The Swiss initiative mirrors efforts elsewhere in Europe to reduce dependence on nuclear power, partly sparked by Japan's Fukushima disaster in 2011. Germany aims to phase out nuclear power by 2022, while Austria banned it decades ago.

Referendums are common in Switzerland where voters get the final say on all major policy issues under a system of direct democracy.

Debate on the "Energy Strategy 2050" law has focused on what customers and taxpayers will pay for the measures and whether a four-fold rise in solar and wind power by 2035, as envisaged in the law, can deliver reliable supplies.

Critics have said a family of four would pay 3,200 Swiss francs ($3,290) in extra annual costs, while more intermittent wind and solar energy would mean a greater reliance on imported electricity. Switzerland was a net power importer in 2016.

Energy Minister Doris Leuthard dismissed such estimates as highly inflated. She said the package would cost the average family 40 francs more a year, based on a higher grid surcharge to fund renewable subsidies.

Under the law, 480 million francs will be raised annually from electricity users to fund investment in wind, solar and hydro power. An additional 450 million francs will be set aside from an existing fossil fuels tax to help cut energy use in buildings by 43 percent by 2035 compared with 2000 levels.

Solar and wind now account for less than five percent of Switzerland's energy output, compared with 60 percent for hydro and 35 percent for nuclear. Under the new law, power from solar, wind, biomass and geothermal sources would rise to at least 11,400 gigawatt hours (GWh) by 2035 from 2,831 GWh now.

The law will ban building new nuclear plants. Switzerland has five plants, with the first slated to close in 2019. Voters have not set a firm deadline for the rest, allowing them to run as long as they meet safety standards.

Supporters say the law would also help utilities which now rely on hydropower, and whose costs exceed Europe's wholesale prices.

Alpiq, BKW, AXPO and other utilities would share a 120 million franc annual subsidy to help close the gap between production costs and market prices. Other funds would help build new dams or refurbish old ones. For a FACTBOX see ($1 = 0.9722 Swiss francs) (Reporting by Michael Shields; Editing by Clelia Oziel)</s>Switzerland has voted to start exiting nuclear power and replace it with renewable energy.

In a referendum held on Sunday, over 58% of the voters endorsed the need to go with cleaner power sources by replacing the country’s ageing nuclear power plants with new renewable power projects.

The country currently has five nuclear power plants that are fast approaching the end of their operational lifespan. These power plants cover the needs of one third of Switzerland’s energy requirements, as reported by BBC.

Although no date has been decided yet regarding the decommissioning of the nuclear power plants, the country will now look to focus on renewable sources like wind, solar and hydro power following the mandate.

Those who have been opposing the country’s plans to move away from nuclear power have claimed that Switzerland will have to pay a lot more money on renewable sources while the landscape risks at losing its beauty.

Green party president Regula Rytz, who has hailed the mandate as a moment of historic change, has been quoted by the publication to have said: “The Swiss population has said 'no' to the construction of new nuclear power plants and yes to the development of renewable energy.

“The conditions have also been set whereby the economy and households will need to take responsibility for the future.”

Following the Fukushima plant disaster in Japan during the 2011 tsunami, the Swiss government proposed to phase out nuclear energy and meet the country’s power requirements entirely from renewables by 2050.

While the new mandate lets the government to implement the plan from January 2018, a previous referendum seeking the lifespan of the nuclear plants reduced from 60 years to 45 years was rejected by the voters in November last year.

Image: The Beznau Nuclear Power Plant, one of the five nuclear plants in Switzerland. Photo: courtesy of Roland Zumbühl, Arlesheim/Wikipedia.</s>Swiss voters backed the government's plan to provide billions of dollars in subsidies for renewable energy, ban new nuclear plants and help bail out struggling utilities in a binding referendum on Sunday.

Provisional final figures showed support at 58.2 percent under the Swiss system of direct democracy, which gives voters final say on major policy issues.

A Swiss flag in front of the Federal Palace (Bundeshaus) is pictured in Bern, Switzerland, Jan. 16, 2017.

 Credit: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

The Swiss initiative mirrors efforts elsewhere in Europe to reduce dependence on nuclear power, partly sparked by Japan's Fukushima disaster in 2011. Germany aims to phase out nuclear power by 2022, while Austria banned it decades ago.

"The results shows the population wants a new energy policy and does not want any new nuclear plants," Energy Minister Doris Leuthard said, adding the law would boost domestic renewable energy, cut fossil fuel use and reduce reliance on foreign supplies.

"The law leads our country into a modern energy future," she told a news conference, adding some parts of the law would take effect in early 2018.

Debate on the "Energy Strategy 2050" law had focused on what customers and taxpayers will pay for the measures and whether a four-fold rise in solar and wind power by 2035, as envisaged in the law, can deliver reliable supplies.

Leuthard has said the package would cost the average family 40 francs more a year, based on a higher grid surcharge to fund renewable subsidies.

Critics said a family of four would pay 3,200 Swiss francs ($3,290) in extra annual costs, while more intermittent wind and solar energy would mean a greater reliance on imported electricity. Switzerland was a net power importer in 2016.

Most parties and environmentalists hailed the result.

"The voting public has ... paved the way for a future that builds on sustainability, renewable energies and energy efficiency. Today's decision is good for the climate, the environment, our jobs, the Swiss economy and the whole population," the Social Democrats said.

The electrical and mechanical engineering sector, which opposed the law, said it was important to see how it is implemented.

"The problem of long-term security of electricity supplies must be resolved. It is also important for companies that the costs and the regulatory burden not swell," it said.

Under the law, 480 million francs will be raised annually from electricity users to fund investment in wind, solar and hydro power. An additional 450 million francs will be set aside from an existing fossil fuels tax to help cut energy use in buildings by 43 percent by 2035 compared with 2000 levels.

Solar and wind now account for less than 5 percent of Switzerland's energy output, compared with 60 percent for hydro and 35 percent for nuclear. Under the new law, power from solar, wind, biomass and geothermal sources would rise to at least 11,400 gigawatt hours (GWh) by 2035 from 2,831 GWh now.

The law will ban building new nuclear plants. Switzerland has five plants, with the first slated to close in 2019. Voters have not set a firm deadline for the rest, allowing them to run as long as they meet safety standards.

The law also helps utilities that now rely on hydropower, and whose costs exceed Europe's wholesale prices.

Alpiq, BKW, AXPO [AXPOH.UL] and other utilities would share a 120 million franc annual subsidy to help close the gap between production costs and market prices. Other funds would help build new dams or refurbish old ones.</s>Swiss voters living abroad gave their full support to the government's new energy law in Sunday's nationwide vote. Political scientist Thomas Milic explains why.

On Sunday, Swiss voters living outside the country said a resounding 'yes' to Energy Strategy 2050, which aims to promote renewable energy, ban new nuclear power plants and lower energy consumption.

This is what analysis has shown from the results of 12 cantons, which compile the voting trends of the Swiss abroad.

Final results showed just over 58% of voters on Sunday coming out in favour of the Energy Strategy programme. The results for the Swiss abroad, meanwhile, ranged from 70-80%, depending on the canton. In two-thirds of the 12 cantons studied, the percentage of 'yes' votes by Swiss expats was 20 percentage points above the cantonal average.

Are the Swiss living abroad more eco-minded than citizens living in the wealthy alpine state?

"This is a trend we have seen in other Swiss votes. In general, Swiss expats are slightly more left-wing when they vote than citizens living in Switzerland, and not just on environmental issues," declared Thomas Milic, a political scientist who works at both the Sotomo research centre and at the Aargau Centre for Democracy Studies.

Today, many Swiss leave Switzerland for professional or educational reasons.

"These people generally have a rather liberal view of society, at least from an economic perspective. The more conservative Swiss tend to stay at home," said Milic.

Closer analysis of votes in canton Aargau, which is home to three of the nation’s five nuclear power plants, makes particularly interesting reading. While the majority of the canton's voters narrowly rejected the new law, 78% of Aargau citizens who have moved abroad supported the new law, which bans new nuclear power plants.

"In general, Aargau residents are fans of nuclear energy, as three of the nation's five plants are based on their territory and they benefit substantially in economic terms. The Swiss abroad who are registered in Aargau do not benefit directly, which largely explains this huge difference in behaviour," said Milic.

The smaller direct involvement of the Swiss abroad has raised hackles. In June 2015, following a close ballot, Swiss expats were accused of tipping the vote for the introduction of a general radio and TV licence fee, while they do not actually pay anything towards the licence fee. More recently, Claudio Kuster, Senator Thomas Minder's political advisor, sparked controversy by declaring in a tweet that the Swiss abroad should not have the right to vote. He argued that they were not sufficiently informed during voting campaigns.

Milic totally rejects this viewpoint: "The Swiss abroad are not isolated from the Swiss media landscape as they might have been 25 years ago. They have identical sources of information on the internet and many even have access to Swiss TV programmes. They can therefore fully appreciate the intense political debates and voting campaigns going on back home."
Swiss voters approve a referendum to phase out nuclear power in Switzerland and increase renewable energy.