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Steffen Kortmann joined the Power Systems Laboratory (PSL) and the Nexus-e project at ETH Zurich to investigate how investments in solar photovoltaics affect distribution networks in Switzerland. Steffen is an MSc student in Business Administration and Engineering with a focus on Electrical Power Engineering at RWTH Aachen in Germany. He joins Nexus-e for a research project within the IDEA League Research Grant framework. Welcome, Steffen!

Conor is currently a MSc student in Integrated Building Systems at ETH Zurich. He will conduct his Master’s thesis on coupling the two energy system modeling platforms: City Energy Analyst and Nexus-e.

With the decarbonization and decentralization of energy production, Switzerland faces two mammoth tasks in the coming years and decades. The restructuring of the energy supply requires political and investment decisions. The stakeholders in the energy sector act based on scenarios that show possible developments. Scientists at ETH Zurich have now created the modeling platform Nexus-e. It enables to create scenarios for the electricity sector and, in particular, also includes economic and grid-related issues.

The Nexus-e team has successfully completed the pilot project “The role of flexibility providers in shaping the future energy system” supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. The established platform will serve as a modeling infrastructure to facilitate the analysis of future energy systems.

Nexus-e is mentioned in the GLOBE magazine as a tool helping researchers to understand the future energy system and get ready for the cleantech race.

Computational models can provide technical analysis to objectively evaluate the impact of energy policies. But why are they rarely used in public policymaking? Unclear quality of the input, non-transparent methodology, lack of validation, neglecting behavioural irrationality, and oversimplification are some of the barriers. Nexus-e makes a first step to tackle these challenges.