Football training in Magglingen, Switzerland (source: Ch-info.ch, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons)
The planned geothermal heating plant in Magglingen, Switzerland, will no longer be pursued, with the relevant agency citing too expensive deep drilling costs.
The city of Magglingen in the canton of Bern in Switzerland will no longer continue with a planned deep geothermal heating project, stating that further exploration work will be extremely complex and would incur significantly higher costs. The local government is still committed to decarbonization and will explore alternative energy sources to the current natural gas heating supply.
Led by the Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics (BBL), the Magglingen geothermal project seeks to supply geothermal heating to Magglingen National Sports Center of the Federal Office of Sport (BASPO) by 2029. To characterize the subsurface geology of the site and its geothermal potential, a seismic survey was done over the course of three weeks in early 2023.
An update announced in 2025 indicated that exploration drilling in Magglingen was being planned by the end of 2027, to target depths between 1500 to 2300 meters. There was also a plan to apply for funding from the project from the Federal Parliament. All these plans will seemingly no longer materialize with the most recent announcement.
According to the BBL, the costs that will be incurred in deep drilling were going to be significantly higher than initially predicted. The decision was also made upon assessing the economic viability of the planned geothermal plant over its entire life cycle.
The BBL assured that the data collected from the geothermal exploration campaign in Magglingen will still be useful in refining the existing knowledge on the region’s geology and subsurface. Relatively little is known about the subsurface of Switzerland, so all measurement data are considered valuable. The data will be made available to the public through the Federal Office of Topography, swisstopo.
The federal government still seeks to decarbonize the heat supply of the BASPO site and is examining several options for alternative energy sources. Geothermal energy remains one of these options, albeit targeting shallower sources that can be drilled more cost-effectively and paired with heat pumps. Another option is to use air-source heat pumps or seasonal energy storage. Heat supply is currently based on natural gas and wood pellets, and this system is not expected to be replaced before 2031.
Source: Switzerland Federal News Service