| Media release
Swissgrid has established the independent subsidiary Pronovo AG as the accredited certification body for recording guarantees of origin and processing federal funding programmes for renewable energies.
In May 2017, the Swiss electorate adopted the Energy Act (Energiegesetz - EnG), which shall enter into force on 1 January 2018. Amongst other things, the Act stipulates that the collection of grid premiums, the CRF and one-off remuneration payments, and the issuing of guarantees of origin should be outsourced to an independent enforcement agency. Swissgrid has been directly responsible for these activities as an accredited certification body on behalf of the federal government since 2007.
Pronovo AG, recently entered in the commercial register of the canton of Aargau, is a wholly owned subsidiary of Swissgrid and will operate under the authority of the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE). The headquarters of the subsidiary, which employs around 60 people, are located in Frick (Aargau). The newly created enforcement agency will begin its operations on 3 January 2018.
Board of Directors and management of the company
The Board of Directors at Pronovo AG is made up of three people. The Chairman of the Board of Directors is Andreas Niemack, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors at Interis AG and EDG Consulting Ltd. Through his various managerial roles, he has acquired a high level of financial expertise and broad knowledge in product and customer relationship management. He will be supported by Frédéric Monard, who has been CEO of the PIDAS Group since 2014 and specialises in strategy development and implementation, business development and IT service management. The third member of the Board of Directors is Andreas Schlegel, who, as the founder and investor of various start-ups in the area of innovation management and the technology and energy sectors, brings a great deal of consulting expertise to the team. The Managing Director of Pronovo AG will be René Burkhard. As Head of Renewable Energies and Guarantee of Origin, he is already the person responsible for processing the federal government's funding programmes at Swissgrid.
Adaptation of promotional fund and replacement of CRF with feed-in tariff system
As a result of the foundation of the company Pronovo AG, the «Cost-Covering Remunerations for Feed-in to the Electricity Grid» foundation (CRF) has been dissolved. The administration of the promotional fund and the financial means to cover the costs of the CRF and one-off remunerations, the costs of their predecessor promotional model «Additional Cost Financing» (ACF) and the costs of all the other funding programmes stipulated in the Energy Act are therefore being transferred from the CRF foundation to the federal government.
As part of the new Energy Act, the cost-covering remunerations for feed-in to the electricity grid (CRF) will be replaced by a feed-in tariff system (FTS) as of the beginning of 2018. The new remuneration system will apply to both new and certain large existing plants in what was previously the CRF. The one-off remuneration for photovoltaic plants will now also be extended to large plants. Swissgrid will inform all plant operators of the consequences of the new Energy Act individually. All plant operators in the CRF and applicants on the waiting list, i.e. around 50,000 addressees, will receive written information in December 2017.
Further information and fact sheets on the CRF, photovoltaics and the future FTS with direct marketing have been available online on the SFOE's website since 2 November 2017.
