Swiss electricity prices, 2010–2026: the chart your utility won’t show you.
Your bill went up 73% in 16 years. Solar producers got paid about 6 rappen per kWh the whole time. Here’s every year of data — and what finally changes in 2026.
Upgrid7 min readUpdated March 2026
Switzerland has 590 electricity grid operators. Each sets its own tariff. None of them are required to show you how that tariff compares to what they pay solar producers for the exact same kilowatt-hour.
We did it anyway. Here is 16 years of Swiss residential electricity prices next to 16 years of solar feed-in tariffs — the price grid operators pay producers when they sell their surplus back to the grid. The filled area between the two lines is the gap. Your money. Their margin.
What you pay vs. what solar producers get — 2010 to 2026
Swiss median household tariff vs. solar feed-in tariff (KEV) — Source: ElCom, SFOE/Pronovo
You pay (2026)
27.7 Rp.
median grid tariff
Producers get
~6.8 Rp.
solar feed-in tariff
2024 peak gap
25.6 Rp.
per kWh extracted
What you pay (grid tariff)What producers get (feed-in)The gap — kept by the grid
Sources: ElCom press releases (household tariff, H4 profile, 4,500 kWh/yr). SFOE/Pronovo published KEV feed-in rates. 2024–2026 confirmed via official ElCom announcements. Amber zone = 2022–24 energy crisis. Green zone = LEG available from 2026.
The 2024 shock: a 44% price jump in one year
Swiss electricity prices had been rising steadily since 2010 — around 1–2% per year, easy to miss on a bill. Then 2024 happened. The median household tariff jumped from 22.0 to 32.1 Rp./kWh. A 44% increase in twelve months.
The reason: grid operators buy electricity on wholesale markets months or years in advance. In 2022, the European energy crisis sent wholesale prices through the roof. Operators that had locked in contracts at those peak prices passed the full cost to consumers in 2024 when those contracts hit. You paid for a crisis that was already over.
❌What that meant for a typical household
A 4-room flat using 4,500 kWh/year saw its annual bill jump from around CHF 990 in 2023 to CHF 1,446 in 2024 — an extra CHF 456 with no change in consumption. Meanwhile, the solar producer on the roof next door still got paid 6.5 Rp./kWh for the same electricity.
Prices have since come down. ElCom confirmed the 2025 median at 29.0 Rp./kWh, and 2026 drops further to 27.7 Rp./kWh as the crisis-era procurement contracts expire. But “coming down” is relative. The 2026 price is still 73% higher than 2010. And the feed-in tariff is still 6.8 Rp./kWh.
“Prices are ‘falling’ to a level that is still nearly five times what producers earn. This is not a correction. This is the system working exactly as designed.”
Why the feed-in tariff matters — and why nobody talks about it
The Swiss Kostendeckende Einspeisevergütung (KEV) — the cost-covering feed-in tariff — has been the main mechanism for compensating solar producers since 2009. In 2026, small residential solar systems receive around 6.8 Rp./kWh for electricity fed back into the grid.
That number has been relatively stable for 16 years. It rose from around 4.5 Rp. in 2010 to 6.8 Rp. today — a 51% increase. Your household tariff went up 73% in the same period.
The result: the gap between what you pay and what your neighbour’s panels earn has widened, not narrowed, over every single year of Switzerland’s solar expansion. In 2010 the gap was 11.5 Rp./kWh. In 2026 it is 20.9 Rp./kWh. At the 2024 peak it hit 25.6 Rp./kWh.
11.5
Gap in 2010 (Rp./kWh) — where it started
25.6
Gap at 2024 peak — the worst year on record
20.9
Gap today in 2026 — still growing vs. 2010
Switzerland has 590 grid operators. Your price depends on your postcode.
The national median is 27.7 Rp./kWh. But that number hides enormous regional variation. Zwischenbergen in Valais pays 9.5 Rp./kWh — one of the cheapest in Europe. Lützelflüh in Bern pays up to 56 Rp./kWh. Same country, same grid infrastructure at the national level. Six times the price.
This fragmentation is a structural feature, not a bug. Each of Switzerland’s 590 distribution operators sets its own tariff based on its own procurement strategy, infrastructure costs and return-on-capital calculation. You have no choice of provider. You pay what they charge.
Or at least, you did until 2026.
What LEG changes — and why 2026 is the inflection point
The revised Stromversorgungsgesetz (StromVG), in force from January 2026, introduces Local Electricity Communities — Lokale Elektrizitätsgemeinschaften, or LEG. For the first time, solar producers can sell their surplus directly to neighbours within the same grid area, bypassing the feed-in tariff entirely.
Instead of selling to the grid at 6.8 Rp./kWh, producers sell locally at 15–25 Rp./kWh. Instead of you buying from the grid at 27.7 Rp./kWh, you buy from the community at a guaranteed lower rate. The gap — that 20 Rp. the grid has been keeping for 16 years — gets redistributed between the people actually producing and consuming the electricity.
ℹ️In practice
A producer who was earning CHF 340/year selling 5,000 kWh at 6.8 Rp. now earns CHF 850–1,250/year selling the same electricity locally. The investment case for solar just changed completely. And that changes the flywheel: more producers install, more supply enters communities, more consumers pay less.
LEG savings by grid provider — find yours
The exact saving depends on your grid operator. Below is every provider currently live on Upgrid, showing consumer savings and producer added value versus the standard tariff. Sortable by whichever matters to you.
LEG savings by grid provider
How much consumers save and producers earn extra per kWh — Source: Upgrid LEG pricing data 2026
EKS
Consumer saves3.19 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+3.36 Rp./kWh
EBL
Consumer saves2.91 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+1.67 Rp./kWh
Repower
Consumer saves2.38 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+1.87 Rp./kWh
Primeo Energie
Consumer saves2.35 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+4.78 Rp./kWh
Winterthur
Consumer saves2.25 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+3.77 Rp./kWh
Viteos
Consumer saves2.22 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+0.77 Rp./kWh
SGSW
Consumer saves2.14 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+1.62 Rp./kWh
AVAG
Consumer saves1.98 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+6.29 Rp./kWh
EOR
Consumer saves1.88 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+3.41 Rp./kWh
Gruppe E
Consumer saves1.84 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+4.61 Rp./kWh
BKW
Consumer saves1.81 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+0.33 Rp./kWh
Stäfa
Consumer saves1.79 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+2.62 Rp./kWh
EKZ
Consumer saves1.72 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+1.42 Rp./kWh
ESB
Consumer saves1.66 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+7.45 Rp./kWh
SAK
Consumer saves1.45 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+5.34 Rp./kWh
CKW
Consumer saves1.30 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+2.97 Rp./kWh
ELAG
Consumer saves0.91 Rp./kWh
Producer earns extra+6.27 Rp./kWh
All values in Rp./kWh, VAT included. Indicative — actual savings depend on community size and consumption profile. Source: upgrid.ch/en/leg-pricing
How to join an energy community — and why early matters
The communities forming now will have the largest supply base by the time LEG is fully operational. Early members get matched first, lock in their rate soonest, and benefit longest from the compounding effect of community growth.
Register online — 2 minutes. No paperwork, no site visit, no provider cancellation.
Get matched — Upgrid assigns you to the nearest energy community in your grid area.
From 2026 — you receive a portion of your electricity from that community at a guaranteed lower rate, billed separately.
Your main provider stays — they cover anything the community can’t supply. You always have power.
You pay less — guaranteed in your contract. No hidden clauses.
“Switzerland has 8 GW of installed solar capacity and a feed-in tariff that pays producers a quarter of what consumers pay. That imbalance ends in 2026.”
One more reason your bill won’t fall: what’s happening in 2026
The 73% price increase since 2010 was already locked in by structural monopoly pricing. But right now, in March 2026, there’s a fresh layer on top of it — and it has nothing to do with Swiss grid operators.
A US-Israeli military conflict with Iran has effectively halted shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly 20% of global oil and natural gas passes. Qatar — which supplies around a fifth of global LNG — has suspended production amid Iranian drone attacks. European and Asian natural gas prices have roughly doubled in recent weeks as a result. Swiss electricity prices track European wholesale gas prices with a lag, so the full impact on household bills may not hit until late 2026 or early 2027.
Compounding this: Europe entered 2026 with gas storage at just 29% — well below historical averages — after a cold January and reduced Russian supply. And Trump-era tariffs on solar components and steel are slowing the new renewable capacity that would otherwise absorb demand pressure.
ℹ️The structural point
Every geopolitical shock since 2021 has fed into Swiss electricity bills. The Ukraine war drove the 2024 spike. The Iran conflict is building now. Each crisis hits you harder the more dependent you are on fossil-linked grid tariffs. Local solar communities are structurally insulated from this — the price of sunlight doesn’t change when Qatar halts LNG production.
We’re writing a full piece on how the geopolitics of 2026 — Trump’s trade war, the Middle East conflict, and Europe’s fossil dependency — are reshaping energy prices across the continent. Coming soon on the Upgrid blog →
Frequently asked questions about Swiss electricity prices and LEG
Why do electricity prices vary so much between Swiss municipalities?
Switzerland has around 590 independent distribution network operators, each setting tariffs based on their own infrastructure costs, procurement strategy and profit requirements. Because households cannot choose their provider, prices are essentially unregulated at the local level — ElCom can intervene but generally only does so for extreme cases. The result is prices ranging from under 10 Rp./kWh to over 50 Rp./kWh in the same country.
Will Swiss electricity prices continue falling in 2026 and beyond?
ElCom projects the 2026 national median at 27.7 Rp./kWh, down 4% from 2025. The main driver is the expiry of high-cost procurement contracts signed during the 2022 energy crisis. However, new costs are being added from 2026 — including solidarised grid enhancement fees and increased electricity reserve charges — which will slow any further decline. Most analysts expect prices to stabilise in the 26–29 Rp. range through 2028.
What is the Swiss feed-in tariff (KEV) and how is it calculated?
The Kostendeckende Einspeisevergütung (KEV) — now administered through the one-off investment contribution (Einmalvergütung, EIV) system — compensates solar producers for electricity fed into the grid. For small residential systems, the current rate is approximately 6.8 Rp./kWh. This is set nationally by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) and Pronovo, independent of what local grid operators charge consumers. The LEG system introduced in 2026 allows producers to bypass this rate entirely by selling directly within their community.
Your postcode shouldn’t decide how much you overpay.
Register for an Upgrid energy community. 2 minutes. Savings guaranteed from 2026. Your provider stays — just your rate changes.
