電気のない村、今冬の電力不足も無縁　スイスアルプス

【チェビオＡＦＰ＝時事】欧州各地では今、冬を迎えるに当たって電力不足を回避するために節電が呼び掛けられている。だが、スイス南部ティチーノ州にあるバボナ渓谷の住民にうろたえる様子はない。ここは電力網につながったことが一度もないのだ。（写真はスイス南部チェビオ近郊の小さな集落で、煙突に設置された古いソーラーパネル）
　この地域は山頂付近にダムがあり大量の電力を発電しているにもかかわらず、１２の集落のうち１１の集落が電力網に接続されていない。
　谷底の村チェビオの元議員ロマーノ・ダド氏は、渓谷に電力を供給するには変圧器が必要で「この土地の住民にはそんな資金がなかったのです」と語る。
　ダド氏によると、約５００人いた渓谷の住民は数十年の間に５０人を下回るまでになり、その間に暖炉を利用したりソーラーパネルを導入したりするなどして、電力網につながらずに生活するすべを学んだ。ソーラーパネルの導入は、１９８０年代には既に行われていたという。
　住民のビチェ・トニーニさん（８８）は毎年、春から１０月までこの谷で暮らしている。自宅に設置したソーラーパネルのおかげだ。現代社会は「電気を無駄遣いし過ぎです」と憂える。
　日が暮れると、夜空の星を邪魔する街灯もないため、素晴らしいショーが楽しめるのだ。
　その一方で、この谷で数少ないレストランのオーナーでライターのマルティーノ・ジョバンネティーナさんは「ソーラーパネルは部分的な解決策でしかないです」と指摘する。
　ジョバンネティーナさんは、電気がないことに加え、古い建造物の修理をめぐる厳格な規制が、この谷の過疎化の原因だとし、近隣の渓谷の村のように観光地として生まれ変わるのではなく、過去がテーマの野外「博物館」と化してしまったと言う。【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/10/31-14:46）

While people across Europe are being urged to save energy this coming winter to avert power shortages, Switzerland's Bavona Valley is unfazed, having never been plugged into the power network.
Located in the Italian-speaking Ticino region of southern Switzerland, the remote, glacially-carved valley following the Bavona river is one of the steepest in the Alps.
But there are 12 hamlets made up of stone dwellings scattered along the rugged valley which are home to a few dozen inhabitants for most of the year, except in winter when fewer than 10 stay on.
Eleven of the hamlets are not connected to the power grid, despite the area producing lots of electricity thanks to dams located high up near the mountain tops.
They were built after World War II to provide electricity for the German-speaking region of Switzerland over on the northern side of the Alps, said Romano Dado, a former local councillor in Cevio, the village at the lower end of the valley on which the hamlets depend.
Bringing power down into the valley would have required transformers, but the people here didn't have the money for that, he told AFP. Only the last hamlet at the very top of the valley could afford this luxury.
As the decades passed, the valley's population shrank from around 500 to fewer than 50 now, according to Dado, and the inhabitants learned to get by without being on the electricity grid, making do with their fireplaces and installing solar panels on the roofs from as early as the 1980s.
- Oil lamps and candles -
Residents also use gas canisters, candles and oil lamps. To wash their clothes, we go to the river, as always, said Tiziano Dado, Romano's stonemason brother.
The narrow valley, around 10 kilometres long (six miles) and flanked by towering slopes reaching more than 2,500 metres in altitude, has seen sometimes-fatal avalanches, floods and landslides throughout the centuries.
Seasonal migration to the summer pastures persisted in the area until the 1970s.
Families went up the valley with their animals from March until the end of December, coming back down for Christmas, said Sonia Fornera, from Orizzonti Alpini, a group of experts in Alpine history and culture.
It was a hard life but a simple life, said Bice Tonini, 88, warming herself by the fireplace in her house.
Despite her age, she continues to live there from spring to October thanks to her solar panels.
There is so much wastage of electricity in modern society, she lamented.
At night, there are no street lights to prevent her from admiring the stars -- and she enjoys the nightly show far more than watching television, which is a rare sight in the valley.
- Museum or dream? -
We are used to living in a very simple way and we're not afraid of making savings in terms of energy, said Ivo Dado, 81, who proudly had solar panels installed in 1987.
The former farmer -- no immediate relation to the Dado brothers -- is delighted that some cities are giving up on their traditional festive illuminations this December.
This Christmas will be as before, with less light. It will be beautiful again! he said.
This sparing attitude towards electricity is not to everyone's taste.
Solar panels are a partial solution, Martino Giovanettina, a writer and owner of one of the few restaurants in the valley, told AFP.
He believes the lack of electricity, plus the stringent rules for renovating old buildings, are contributing to depopulating the valley, turning it into an open-air museum of the past, instead of orientating towards tourism, as neighbouring valleys have done.
The Bavona Valley has no set-up for tourists at all, apart from a cable car from the last hamlet up to the dams, and the parking of motorhomes is banned.
Doris Femminis, a 2020 Swiss Prize for Literature winner, grew up in the valley and raised goats there during her 20s. Now she recounts the story of the Bavona Valley in her books.
Now living in the Jura mountains in western Switzerland, she returns every two months to this wonderful place of one's childhood.
In Switzerland, we like the idea of still having a corner of wild nature, she said, but acknowledged that such places are not suited to modern life.
It's a place of the past, she told AFP.
Nobody wants to live there anymore; it's just a dream.