Tropenhaus Frutigen, Botanical garden in Frutigen, Switzerland
The Tropenhaus Frutigen is a botanical garden with large greenhouses that shelter tropical plants in warm and humid conditions. The facility combines plant cultivation with fish farming while using natural heat sources from deep underground.
The garden was created in the early 2000s as a project to use heat sources from a nearby mountain tunnel. This idea made it possible to create tropical conditions without high energy costs.
The place displays plants from tropical regions around the world and gives visitors a sense of the diversity found in these ecosystems. You can see here how closely people and nature are connected in tropical areas.
Tourist operations, including the visitors' trail, exhibition and restaurants, closed on 21 May 2024; the site now runs solely as Bergquellfisch Frutigen, a sturgeon and caviar farm. The grounds lie outside Frutigen's village centre on the Engstlige, near the airfield and about two kilometres north of the first test station. Access to the farm itself is not open to visitors.
The warm water leaves the Lötschberg Base Tunnel at about 19 °C and 45 bar, roughly 9,000 cubic metres a day. A heat pump run by BKW draws off the excess heat, and the water then reaches the Kander no more than 0.5 °C warmer, protecting the spawning lake trout.
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