Projects

The company Helion, the Swiss industry association Swissolar and National Councilor Jürg Grossen have each developed roadmaps for the Swiss electricity system up to 2050. These scenarios are characterized by a rapid and strong expansion of photovoltaics (PV) to compensate for the phase-out of nuclear energy and to cover a large part of the increasing electricity demand. In this study, we investigate the feasibility of these Roadmaps and compare them with the “Business as usual” (“Weiter Wie Bisher”, WWB) scenario of the Energy Perspectives 2050+.

The electrification of the transport sector will have a substantial impact on the Swiss electricity system. Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) – the bidirectional interaction between electric vehicles and the grid – is one way of leveraging the battery capacity to provide flexibility for the electricity system. In this study, we make a first estimate of the potential impact of V2G on the Swiss electricity system. We hereby assume that V2G is used for balancing supply and demand on a system level.

Electricity generated from rooftop photovoltaics systems have the largest renewable potential in Switzerland and are expected to contribute substantially to the future Swiss electricity mix. However, so far, these systems are behind their expectations, which is why an update of PV policies is discussed. In this project, we investigate an alternative to the prevailing support scheme. What we call the “customer-oriented feed-in tariff” remunerates solar electricity injected to the grid with a percentage of the retail electricity price, the price electricity customers are paying for electricity consumption.

The Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) launched the funding programme SWEET in 2020 to boost innovative approaches towards implementing Switzerland’s Energy Strategy 2050. Nexus-s will on of the three models leveraged in SWEET EDGE – Enabling Decentralized renewable GEneration in the Swiss cities, midlands, and the Alps – to develop scenarios for the Swiss energy transition.

The Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE) launched the funding programme SWEET in 2020 to boost innovative approaches towards implementing Switzerland’s Energy Strategy 2050. Nexus-e is the central tool for one of the four selected consortia “PATHFNDR”. PATHFNDR focuses on improving renewable energy system efficiency through flexibility and sector coupling. As the central tool for the consortium, Nexus-e will provide the scenarios, considering technical, economic, and social constraints for the national scale and regional scale. In this project, Nexus-e will be extended to represent the entire Swiss energy system.

Negative emission technologies will likely play a critical role in reaching the goal of net-zero carbon emissions. In this project, we will analyze the technical and environmental feasibility of carbon removal with Bio-Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS), based on the availability of biomass, bioenergy potential, and of the infrastructure for CO2 capture and sequestration.

As part of the development of the Nexus-​e platform, this first study sponsored by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy implements the Nexus-​e core modules to research the role of flexibility providers in shaping the future Swiss electricity system.

The stability and reliability of the energy system are of critical importance for all aspects of modern life. These issues encompass the electrical infrastructure, but also other energy carriers like gas, heat and water. For the planning, operation and economic evaluation of the Swiss multi-energy system, Nexus-e provides a detailed representation of the Swiss transmission system as a basis for the bulk multi-​energy grid model.

We analyze the feasibility of the Swiss decarbonization by combining the detailed representation of the Swiss electricity market of Nexus-e with the pan-European, energy sector–wide perspective of Calliope, an energy system model developed by the Climate Policy group at ETH Zurich. The collaboration with Calliope will provide Nexus-e with new scenarios of electricity demand and energy system cost. Calliope in turn profits from Nexus-e’s feedback about what its assumptions about generation capacities mean for electricity markets and for the Swiss transmission grid.

Addressing climate change and achieving the 1.5°C target requires a transition from a centralized, fossil-fuel-based towards a decentralized, renewable-based energy system. Long-term, large-scale energy systems models, such as Nexus-e, are useful in improving our understanding of such transitions and are seeing increased relevance in the face of stringent climate policy, energy security, and economic development concerns. However, they often lack appropriate spatiotemporal resolutions to capture the broad scope of economic and technical challenges. In this project, we collaborate with Prof. Arno Schlüter and the Singapore-ETH Center to tackle current energy system modeling limitations by coupling the City Energy Analyst tool with Nexus-e.