Alpine Power and Mosquito Contracts

Leave it to the Swiss to turn a weekend cycling trip into a quiet tour of industrial pride and hyper-specific municipal contracts. When SRF outdoor reporter Marcel Hähni embarked on a two-day journey past four distinct reservoirs, he was not merely pedalling through mountain scenery. He was traversing the heavily capitalized backbone of the country’s energy system.

Switzerland currently manages more than 220 dams under the oversight of the Federal Office of Energy and cantonal authorities. The route begins unobtrusively at Teufenbachweiher above the Sihl, a modest forest pond that has quietly generated electricity for over 130 years. Yet any initial illusion of untouched nature quickly yields to the realities of heavy alpine engineering.

Further along, in the high valley of Einsiedeln, lies the Sihlsee. Flooded in 1937 at the expense of several hamlets and agricultural lands, it stands as Switzerland’s largest reservoir by surface area. It also operates under a uniquely Swiss financial arrangement. Should the water level fall below 887.34 meters above sea level, the operator, Swiss Federal Railways, is contractually obligated to pay the district of Einsiedeln a penalty known as mosquito money. The fee is designed to prevent exposed shorelines from turning into insect breeding grounds—a piece of administrative fine-tuning that could only survive in a wealthy, obsessively organized nation.

The tour moves onward toward the Wägitalersee, site of the world’s first gravity dam to exceed 100 meters in height, reinforced with granite facing in 1931. The route eventually concludes in the isolated Calfeisental at the Gigerwaldsee, where a 147-meter arch dam holds back water against sheer rock faces near the historic Walser settlement of St. Martin.

These massive installations face modern environmental strains. Prolonged dry spells regularly diminish inflows, squeezing power production and putting pressure on local ecosystems. Yet as the journey highlights, the Swiss response to nature's limitations remains consistent: a steady combination of concrete, capital, and localized contractual pragmatism.

Written by Freya Stensrud freya.stensrud@alpineweekly.com