Tatalan Tibetan tray - China

RENEWABLE ENERGY – THE WORLD IS PICKING UP SPEED, ASIA AND THE US ARE SMASHING RECORDS… WHILE SWITZERLAND IS RECOUNTING ITS FORMS

While the rest of the world is installing gigawatts of power, Switzerland is setting up committees, regulations and procedures, and congratulating itself on being the “best in the world”.

Across Asia, entire deserts are disappearing beneath seas of solar panels.

The MTerra Solar project in the Philippines will become the world’s largest integrated solar power plant and battery facility.

In the United States, high-voltage power lines as long as European countries are being laid to connect absolutely gigantic photovoltaic power stations and wind farms capable of supplying millions of homes. Renewable power stations are no longer just projects: they are heavy industrial infrastructure, built quickly, on a massive scale, with no regard for the environment.

The Copper Mountain solar complex concentrates 802 MW of PV power in Nevada’s Eldorado Valley

And Switzerland?

It consults. It assesses. It procrastinates. It protects the landscape — even if it means sacrificing the energy future that would still allow us to admire its contours.

Whilst China is transforming entire plateaus into energy-generating machines and India is installing solar panels at the pace of a motorway construction site, the Swiss Confederation is debating whether a wind turbine ‘might spoil the view’.

The result:

Elsewhere, they produce; here, we import.
Elsewhere, sovereign capacity is being built; here, we are accumulating carefully regulated dependencies.

The energy transition is no longer an environmental issue. It is an industrial, technological and geopolitical war. Those who build today will sell energy, technology and influence tomorrow. The others will draft beautifully bound reports explaining why they did nothing.

This report does not describe a green utopia

It describes a real, brutal, fast-moving world, where gigawatts do not ask for permission to pass. And it poses a simple, almost cruel question:

Does Switzerland still want to be a country that makes decisions… or a country that observes, comments and foots the bill?

1. Introduction: A world that builds, a country that consults

Whilst the major powers are rewriting the global energy map at the rate of gigawatts installed each month, Switzerland watches the scene with the caution of a civil servant faced with a form in 6-point font.

Monstrous solar arrays, mind-boggling wind farms, giant batteries, smart grids: the continents are moving forward, sometimes too fast, but they are moving forward.

Meanwhile, back home… we’re still debating whether a shadow cast by a solar panel might disturb a lizard...

2. China: excess becomes the norm

Whilst the West wonders whether it is reasonable to install two more wind turbines, China is signing off on projects of such a scale that they seem straight out of a science fiction novel.

Talatan Tibetan Plateau – China – comparison with Manhattan

2.1. The Tibetan Plateau: the solar power station that swallows the horizon

The Tibetan Plateau project is set to become the world’s largest clean energy hub. The Talatan solar power station has a capacity of 16,930 MW, and the entire site also includes massive wind and hydroelectric facilities, giving it unrivalled energy output.

Thanks to high-voltage transmission lines, this clean energy supplies towns and industries over 1,600 km away, including data centres for artificial intelligence.

2.2. Spectacular Chinese projects

Golmud solar power plant (Qinghai): over 2 GW in a single site.
Tengger Desert: a “Great Solar Wall” illustrating the rapid expansion of photovoltaic installations.
Other installations: over 1,080 GW of cumulative solar capacity in China, with record monthly additions.

By combining record additions of solar and wind power, China has seen its renewable capacity exceed its thermal capacity (coal + gas) for the first time, a major milestone in its energy transition.

China has thus become the only country in the world to have already implemented its entire strategy for electricity generation, storage and distribution, enabling it to be 100% self-sufficient and never need to rely on other countries for its electricity supply.

The result of this strategic implementation is that virtually only 100% renewable generation solutions have been installed, meaning that China will have the world’s lowest cost per kWh for its residents and industries.

3. Asia excluding China: the continent’s energy and technology awakening

South-East Asia and South Asia have grasped two simple facts:

Solar energy is now the cheapest in the world.
Those who build quickly… win.

3.1. India: the empire of low-cost solar

India is rolling out power stations as if planting rice paddies. Among the giants:

Bhadla Solar Park: ~2.25 GW in Rajasthan, a veritable ‘city of panels’ located in the Rajasthan desert, is one of the largest in the world with 10,000,000 solar panels.
PM-KUSUM Programme: hundreds of thousands of agricultural solar installations extended to all villages.

The national target: 500 GW of renewables by 2030, a bold industrial and energy milestone.

3.2. Vietnam: Asia’s prodigy

Between 2018 and 2021, Vietnam increased its solar capacity by over 1,000%, transforming from a fledgling market into one of the most dynamic in the region. This is no miracle, but the result of a deliberate national strategy.

3.3. South Korea, Japan: Asian precision at the service of gigantism

Japan: mega floating solar parks on bodies of water, coupled with giant batteries.
South Korea: ambitious plans for offshore wind and large-scale floating solar farms.

3.4. Philippines: MTerra Solar = World-record-breaking project worth USD 3.5 billion!

Nothing less than the world’s largest photovoltaic power plant (3,500 hectares, spanning five cities) and the world’s largest solar-powered storage battery, with a projected capacity of 4.5 GWh.

MTerra Solar in the Philippines

Asia has taken note: the energy transition is no longer a debate, it is a sprint.

4. United States: when innovation and gigantism become a national therapy

The United States, for its part, possesses that rare ability to transform a technical necessity into a global industry.

4.1. The Inflation Reduction Act: the turbo effect

The tax reform known as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has provided substantial tax credits for solar and wind projects, including production and investment credits of up to 30% for systems exceeding 1 MW. These provisions remain in place until 2025 and continue to encourage large-scale installations.

4.2. Flagship projects

Mammoth Solar (Indiana): ~1,600 MW, one of the largest solar projects in the United States and the Western Hemisphere.
SunZia Wind & Transmission (New Mexico): a 3.5 GW wind farm with an 885 km HVDC line to transmit energy to Arizona and California.
Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind: a 2.6 GW offshore project off the coast of Virginia.

These capacities are part of a US boom in renewable energy installations. Solar installations thus increased by 49% in the third quarter of 2025, with 11.7 GW of new capacity added, representing nearly 58% of all new electricity generation that year.

Nevertheless, the current administration has also seen delays on certain projects, notably permit delays on federal land and the cancellation of mega-projects, contrasting with previous periods when the installation of renewables clearly dominated capacity expansion.

Mammoth Solar Indiana USA

5. Meanwhile in Switzerland: the ‘slow living’ energy transition

Ah, Switzerland… Long gone is the hydroelectric miracle magnificently built by the daring and talented visionaries of yesteryear… But that was before…

Yet this is a country where our extraordinary engineers possess exceptional technical expertise of the highest calibre, and where we could still build the world’s most innovative 100% renewable power stations.

But where every project comes up against an army of procedures, regulations, gigantic application dossiers, validations, studies that drag on for years at costs unbearable for most of the daring utopians who might attempt such an adventure, prior notices, counter-notices and opponents who see in every wind turbine and every single solar panel a mythological creature come to devour the heritage and destroy ‘the most magnificent landscape in the world’… Horror…

5.1. Photovoltaics: ambitions on a chicken coop scale…

Whilst China is rolling out gigawatts, Switzerland is debating a few modest installations, the energy equivalent of a vegetable patch compared to a battlefield.

The slowness of the authorisation process is holding back any possibility of large-scale installations.

5.2. Wind power: an almost exotic concept

The country that invented precision engineering cannot manage to install a dozen wind turbines without triggering a regulatory circus.

5.3. Procedures: the real Swiss barrier

Switzerland has managed to create a system so sophisticated that even innovations and installations that are absolutely essential are… blocked by the very perfection of the system.

A sort of high-end regulatory watchmaking: magnificent, but useless in the rain.

6. Conclusion: if Switzerland doesn’t wake up now, it will wake up… as an importer

The world is moving forward!

Continents are building at a rate of several gigawatts a month.
Asia is reinventing what a solar power plant is.
The United States has so far been transforming its deserts and coastlines into continental-scale batteries.

And Switzerland?

It admires the landscape, cautiously notes that it would be wise to give it some thought, then launches an 18-month public consultation to validate the idea that perhaps one day… we might eventually consider taking action.... And think about perhaps launching an initiative... but with all the necessary slowness.

If nothing changes, the land of brilliant engineers will simply become an importer of energy (renewable or fossil) produced elsewhere; it already imports 70% of its energy, according to a study by the Swiss Energy Foundation (SES)

Not due to a lack of technical capability, but due to administrative shortcomings and, above all, the legendary Swiss political timidity when it comes to authorising anything bold or large-scale – which also explains why Swiss energy companies invest several billion a year in renewable energy... abroad...

For example, the diversified portfolio of a holding company commissioned by several Swiss firms includes wind farms located all over the place, hydroelectric power generated in Norway, and solar power deployed in southern countries such as Italy or Spain. For this holding company, investments abroad are attractive because they enable it to supply renewable energy to customers, but also because the profit margin is higher.

In the words of its CEO: "Outside Switzerland, everything is simpler."

The rest of the world is playing the energy transition game. Switzerland, for the time being, remains on the sidelines, explaining that it is waiting for the right moment to take to the field.

What fascinates me deeply is Swiss technical prowess and engineering: we have the brains, the tools, the designs and the expertise to design the most efficient, modern and elegant 100% renewable power stations in the world.

Our engineers could deploy and design cutting-edge hybrid systems combining solar, wind, heat recovery and storage, and transform our country into a global model for green energy.

But this potential faces two major obstacles: bureaucracy, politics… and the deep-seated fear of our long-established energy companies that their monopolies might be challenged.

For whilst the Asian and American giants are building at breakneck speed, capitalising on clear industrial visions and a thirst for innovation, Switzerland remains frozen in time: we protect the lobbies, we preserve the status quo, we put the brakes on any project that might lead to truly sovereign and competitive energy production. Switzerland is stuck in a standstill, counting forms, multiplying consultations, scrutinising every last detail to determine whether a solar panel might cast a shadow on a lizard.

It is a cruel paradox: we have the capacity to build the future, but our institutions and monopolies prefer to preserve the past.

Whilst the world is installing terawatts of clean energy and securing its energy supply on a massive scale, here we continue to weigh up every regulatory comma as if it were a masterpiece in itself, rather than finally moving out of ‘discussion’ mode and into ‘implementation’ mode; Switzerland is content to defend the status quo, even if it means sacrificing innovation on the altar of the status quo.

Alain Farrugia