BKW Wind Farm Bernese Jura: Construction Halt Without Permit

The superprovisionaly ordered halt has been definitively confirmed by the Canton of Bern.

Without a building permit, the wind farm may not be further developed. The approval of the High Voltage Inspectorate is missing. In addition, farmers must be expropriated. On the forest pastures in Tramelan, over a hundred trees have already been felled and thousands of square metres of ground have been broken up. The damage has been done.

Using large construction machinery, BKW began realising the wind farm on the Montagne de Tramelan in the Bernese Jura in August 2025. The interventions were massive: over a hundred trees, including dozens of large firs, were felled, and thousands of square metres of land were broken up for new roads. For the valuable forest pastures, the construction was a disaster. While urban sprawl must be curbed everywhere, wind turbine projects are permitted to clear forest pastures and carve out new, wide access roads through untouched nature.

In mid-August 2025, the Canton of Bern issued a superprovisionaly ordered stop to construction works, following a request by local residents. Although the Federal Supreme Court approved the land-use planning and a municipal building permit in 2021, it did so subject to conditions that have not been met to this day. The project still lacks approval from the federal High Voltage Inspectorate, as BKW never applied for it. Furthermore, the consent of the affected farmers for right-of-way and access rights is still outstanding. The farmers are now to be expropriated at BKW's request.

Even after closer examination and despite contrary claims by BKW, the canton stands by its decision: the construction freeze is definitive. BKW does not have a valid, legally binding building permit. It is not permitted to begin construction work. This means that the massive forest clearances and the tearing open of the new road have so far been unnecessary.

The massive damage, however, illustrates the scale of the interventions caused by wind turbines in nature. For a wind farm, enormous areas of forest must be cleared and large areas of pasture torn up and sealed for new roads and installation sites.

The Tramelan wind farm is a prime example of a problematic wind farm: on the one hand, it is to be built in a valuable forest pasture area, directly on the edge of the national landscape protection zone “Jurassian Franches-Montagnes.” On the other hand, it stands directly in front of the Jurassian village of Les Genevez, which was not permitted to vote on the project. The host municipality of Tramelan, from whose residential area the wind farm would not even be visible, approved the wind farm with a minimum distance of 500 m. This minimum distance was recognised as valid by the Federal Court, but was nonetheless not applied to the project.

The Tramelan wind farm contradicts the federal forest protection and municipal protection initiatives, which are expected to come to a vote in spring 2027. The two initiatives seek to continue allowing the construction of wind turbines in Switzerland, while taking into account forest protection and the right of affected municipalities to have a say.

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