What startups are driving energy innovation in the CleanTech sector in Switzerland?
The price volatility of energy resulting from the Russia – Ukraine war has shown the importance of renewable energy sources as a way to reduce the dependency on fossil fuel suppliers. Here is which role startups in the CleanTech sector can play.
The cost of energy in Europe has surged in the last year, driven by record gas prices as Russia curbed supply to Europe. Due to that current geopolitical crisis, the relative cost of renewable energy technologies is decreasing in relation to the gas prices.
As part of a larger in-depth market analysis that BV4 is conducting on the CleanTech sector that includes analysis of industries such as Renewable Energy, Transportation, Water Technology and Agriculture & Food amongst others, we want to give a sneak peek on the EnergyTech startups in Switzerland.
BV4 has focused on selecting a set of startups that are driving innovations within the EnergyTech sector, which can be split into (1) Solar Energy, (2) Energy Storage, (3) Wind energy and (4) Other clean energy. These selected startups, amongst others, focus on making renewable energy a more accessible alternative to current energy sources.
A large majority of the Swiss CleanTech startups focus on either solar energy or energy storage. Most of these solutions aim to make clean energy more flexible and accessible from everywhere in order to avoid storage issues. These solutions range from flexible solar modules to integrating solar cells into complex electronic devices.
In Switzerland, solar and wind energy have large unutilized potential with renewable energies (excluding hydro power) accounting for only 6% of the total energy. Hydro power is utilized extensively and currently supplies 56% of the country’s electricity, followed by nuclear energy (35%).
Switzerland has a largely untapped potential for renewable energy and with growing environmental concerns, increased interest from VCs and the Swiss government driving forward the transition to renewable energy sources by promoting the installation of photovoltaic systems (450 million Swiss francs available for the promotion of photovoltaics in 2022), increased investments and innovative solutions can be expected in the renewable energies industry in Switzerland.
BV4 is going to publish an extended report on energy innovation in the CleanTech sector during the upcoming weeks.