Heatwave cuts output at Switzerland’s largest run-of-river power station
Monday 19th October 2026 on 21:15 in
Switzerland
Low water levels have cut electricity production at Switzerland’s largest run-of-river power station by about a third compared with its 10-year average, SRF reports. The Birsfelden plant, near Basel, expects 2026 to be its worst production year.
The Rhine is currently carrying about 270 cubic metres of water per second through the plant’s turbines. That is only around a third of its normal flow, according to SRF. The station could handle up to 1,500 cubic metres per second, but only two of its four generators are currently operating.
Plant director Sasha Jäger called the current flow “frighteningly low”. The station supplies 150,000 households, or about 17% of households in the greater Basel area. The Rhine carried up to 65% less water because of the hot, dry summer.
BKW Energie AG, an energy company based in Bern, also reported lower output. It told SRF that drought had left production in the first half of 2026 “significantly below the long-term average”, but did not provide figures.
Meanwhile, the canton of Basel-Landschaft is seeking operators for six small run-of-river plants along the Birs and Ergolz rivers. Both rivers dwindled to little more than streams at times this summer.
Norbert Beckert, head of energy production at Elektra Baselland, said the projects were not attractive to the company. In his view, construction costs and complex planning approval procedures meant there was no location in the region where a plant of that size could be built and operated profitably.
Elektra Baselland already runs a smaller plant in Zwingen, which opened five years ago. It was shut down for two months this summer, a period the company had expected because the plant is designed to generate electricity from winter water flows. Beckert expects it to be profitable over time.
Hydrologist Bettina Schaefli, a professor at the University of Bern, said the case for new plants depended on local conditions. In Switzerland’s Central Plateau, she said, summer drought had long been a factor, and some plants were designed to generate more power in winter. Smaller, decentralised plants can improve security of supply, she said, but their future reliability must be weighed against the effects of building an obstacle in a river and changing its ecosystem.