Data-center law in Switzerland

Federal Act on Spatial Planning (RPG), SR 700, Art. 15, 22, 23

Effective 1980-01-01

Article 22 requires that any building or installation, including a data centre, be erected or altered only with authorisation from the competent authority, granted only where the building or installation conforms to the purpose of the zone in which it is sited and the land is serviced; other requirements of federal and cantonal law remain reserved, leaving the detailed building code to the cantons and communes. Article 23 leaves exceptions within building zones to cantonal law.

Article 15 requires that building zones be sized to the anticipated need for fifteen years, and requires an oversized building zone to be reduced, which bears on whether land for a large facility such as a data centre is already zoned appropriately or would require a rezoning.

Source: Full text of law

Federal Act on the Protection of the Environment (USG), SR 814.01, Art. 10a-10d

Effective 2007-07-01

Before an authority decides on the planning, construction or alteration of an installation, it must assess the installation's environmental impact as early as possible where the installation could significantly burden the environment such that compliance with environmental protection law can foreseeably be assured only by project- or site-specific measures (Art. 10a).

The Federal Council designates by ordinance which installation types are subject to the assessment and may set thresholds triggering it, reviewing both periodically.

A person planning, constructing or altering an installation subject to the assessment must submit an environmental impact report forming the basis of the review (Art. 10b), and the report and the assessment's results may be inspected by anyone, subject to overriding private or public secrecy interests, with manufacturing and business secrets always preserved (Art. 10d).

Source: Full text of law

Federal Act on the Electricity Supply (StromVG), SR 734.7, Art. 5, 13

Effective 2008-01-01

Article 5 requires a grid operator to connect, within its grid area, every end consumer located within the building zone, every year-round inhabited property or settlement outside the building zone, and every electricity producer, to the electricity grid; the cantons designate each operator's grid area, and its allocation must be non-discriminatory and transparent.

Article 13 requires a grid operator to grant a third party non-discriminatory access to its network, but the operator may refuse access, with written reasons given within ten working days of the request, where it demonstrates that the network's secure operation would be endangered, that no free capacity is available, or that a foreign state does not grant reciprocal cross-border network access.

Source: Full text of law

Federal Act on the Protection of the Environment (USG), SR 814.01, Art. 11-12

Effective 1985-01-01

Air pollution, noise, vibration and radiation are limited by measures at their source, independent of the existing level of environmental burden, to the extent technically and operationally possible and economically viable, tightened further where the impact is shown or expected to become harmful or a nuisance given the existing burden (Art. 11).

Emissions are limited through emission limit values, construction and equipment regulations, traffic or operating regulations, building thermal-insulation regulations, and fuel regulations (Art. 12).

Source: Full text of law