Switzerland (CH): official daily generation data from SFOE / Swissgrid

[Dylan-Wettstein]

Hi Electricity Maps team,

I’d like to suggest an official Swiss generation dataset that may be useful for improving the CH zone.
From the methodology currently shown for Switzerland, power generation appears to rely on EMBER + Electricity Maps Estimation. The Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE/BFE) publishes a public Open Government Data dataset based on Swissgrid data with daily electricity production by generation type.

Data source

• Publisher: Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE/BFE)
• Underlying source: Swissgrid
• Dataset: energiedashboard.ch: Stromproduktion Swissgrid
• Dataset ID: BFE-DS-0093
• CSV distribution ID: BFE-B-0017
• Resolution / update frequency: daily
• Access: public
• Access methods: direct CSV and the SFOE Energy Dashboard Public API
• Generation categories: nuclear, thermal, run-of-river hydro, storage hydro, wind, photovoltaics

Links

• Official dataset metadata: https://opendata.swiss/en/dataset/energiedashboard-ch-stromproduktion-swissgrid
• Direct CSV: https://www.bfe-ogd.ch/ogd104_stromproduktion_swissgrid.csv
• SFOE Energy Dashboard – power production: https://energiedashboard.admin.ch/strom/produktion
• SFOE Public API integration guide: https://www.bfe-ogd.ch/apiguide_edb_de_en.pdf
• Energy Dashboard release notes (Public API v1.0.0 released with dashboard v5.3.0): https://energiedashboard.admin.ch/releasenotes

Why this could be useful

The daily resolution is obviously not suitable as a real-time source. However, the dataset could still be useful to:

• validate and calibrate the synthetic Swiss generation model;
• replace estimated daily / historical aggregates once official data are available;
• identify and correct systematic errors in estimated generation by source.
  This seems particularly relevant given the currently open issue about incorrect Swiss nuclear generation data: [Data Issue]: Switzerland nuclear data is wrong #8771
  There was also an older request to use Swissgrid real-time data: Can we use SwissGrid to have realtime live data?  #3654
  That request concerned Swissgrid’s older real-time grid-data page, whereas this is a separate official SFOE Open Government Data dataset with CSV access and a public API. I could not find an existing discussion or issue specifically referencing it.

The Swiss Federal Office of Energy also publishes several related datasets that may be useful for the CH zone, including electricity imports and exports with Germany, France, Austria and Italy, as well as electricity price data. These may also be worth considering as supplementary data sources.

Limitations

The main limitation is the daily granularity, so I would not suggest this as a replacement for real-time estimates. Also, thermal generation is aggregated rather than split into individual fuels. Nuclear, run-of-river hydro, storage hydro, wind and photovoltaics are available as separate categories.