Cost-covering feed-in remuneration (KEV)
What is it in short?
The abbreviation KEV stands for the German term "Kostendeckende Einspeisevergütung " or in English "cost-covering feed-in remuneration". It is a federal instrument used to promote electricity production from renewable energies.
History
On June 26, 2009, a support system was created in Switzerland to increase the expansion of electricity generation from renewable sources. The goal of the federal government was to keep investments in the construction of plants for the generation of electricity from renewable energies as low as possible and to provide incentives for the rapid expansion of Switzerland's renewable energy infrastructure. The KEV subsidy program was very successful right from the start: an administrative bottleneck quickly formed for applications at the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. At times, more than 37,000 plants were waiting on a waiting list for the financing subsidies for plant construction, as the Aargauer Zeitung reported. It was just as quickly foreseeable that the legally available subsidies would be exhausted as early as 2018. However, with the Energy Strategy 2050, the parliament found a follow-up legislation that led to the replacement of the KEV by the Feed-in remuneration-system (EVS) and the introduction of the direct marketing obligation for certain energy sources and plant sizes.
How does it work?
The KEV subsidies are and were financed by a pay-as-you-go surcharge on the high-voltage grids of CHF 0.015.- per kilowatt hour; with the new version of the Energy Act of January 1, 2018, this amount increased to CHF 0.023.- which is paid by all electricity consumers per kilowatt hour consumed. The grid surcharge fund thus fed was administered by the "Cost-covering feed-in remuneration" foundation until the beginning of 2018; since then, UVEK (Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communications) has taken over the administration.