immo!nvest – Die Plattform für Standorte und Immobilien

Tag: Energieplanung

  • Generational change strengthens commitment to energy transition

    Generational change strengthens commitment to energy transition

    Reto Trittibach is the new owner and managing director of INES Energieplanung GmbH. According to a statement, André Joosten will be his deputy. With this new appointment, the Bern-based provider of energy supply solutions, founded 14 years ago, aims to maintain continuity.

    The aim of INES Energieplanung is to “support the energy transition with expertise and to the best of its ability”. Energy concepts for sites and district heating projects are developed. According to the company, INES contributes its expertise not only to the planning and construction of energy plants, but also to plant concepts. INES also acts as an energy consultant for the city of Bern.

    INES operates in the city and metropolitan area of Bern. Its main customers and cooperation partners include Marzili Wärmeverbund AG and the city of Bern.

    Founder Bruno Liesch shaped INES with a focus on sustainable energy solutions, heating networks and future-oriented energy planning. According to the announcement, he will continue to contribute his experience in project development on a part-time basis until the end of 2026.

  • Digital twins for energy systems are gaining in importance

    Digital twins for energy systems are gaining in importance

    Sympheny has reached a milestone on its journey as a partner of Californian company ESRI and its Swiss branch in Zurich: Sympheny, which was founded in 2020 and is based in Technopark Winterthur, has officially completed ESRI’s three-year start-up programme.

    The “invaluable support, resources and opportunities” received during this time have made it possible to integrate the global company’s geodata technology into its own solutions for energy systems. “From optimising urban energy planning to improving spatial decision making, the ESRI ecosystem has been instrumental in driving our innovation,” Sympheny said.

    Sympheny offers digital twin-based services for energy planners and managers to enable them to achieve their sustainability goals “with minimum cost and maximum confidence,” the start-up said in a self-promotion. “Digital twin algorithms = intelligent services.” To this end, Sympheny provides its subscription-based SaaS platform on which they can develop, manage and continuously use their digital twin of the energy system.

    In the next phase, the partnership between Sympheny and ESRI will be deepened with new joint projects. Sympheny is also “proud to have ESRI as an observer in our GOES project“. GOES is an EU Horizon 2020 project in which innovative geodata solutions for energy planning are being researched. It is coordinated by the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology(Empa) in Dübendorf ZH and comprises eight partners from five EU countries and the USA.

    According to the press release, Sympheny is also looking forward to further collaboration with the Urban ArcGIS team, ESRI’s web-based 3D solution for urban planning projects. Sympheny is particularly keen to promote the topic of energy.

  • Researchers call for a paradigm shift in building and energy planning

    Researchers call for a paradigm shift in building and energy planning

    Matthias Sulzer from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology(Empa) and his colleague Michael Wetter from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California are advocating a paradigm shift in the planning of building and energy systems. “Due to the complexity and required flexibility of future energy systems and the urgency of change, today’s planning processes are not suitable,” explains Sulzer, who heads Empa’s Urban Energy Systems department and is also a researcher at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in an Empa press release. “There is little to no interaction between the disciplines in order to design buildings or energy infrastructures as a holistic system.”

    Sulzer and Wetter are in favour of transferring the so-called platform-based design developed for the automation of chip production to the planning of building and energy systems. The methodology is based on various levels of abstraction on which mutually influencing systems are holistically analysed and optimised. Generally valid models are created at each level, which specify how a system is to be defined and built. The individual models can then be individually combined in practice. Such a paradigm shift could “revolutionise our planning, construction and operating processes and promote the digitalisation and automation that are essential for achieving our ambitious decarbonisation goals,” says Sulzer.

  • Paradigm shift in energy planning

    Paradigm shift in energy planning

    Numerous countries have committed to being climate-neutral by 2050. For building and energy systems, this requires a rapid transition from fossil fuels to renewable energies and greater networking of different sectors. Buildings, mobility, industry, electricity, heat and synthetic fuels must interact and be planned in an integrated manner. Matthias Sulzer from Empa and Michael Wetter from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory argue that the current planning processes do not do justice to this complexity and that a paradigm shift is therefore necessary.

    Current planning process – a silo mentality
    Today’s planning processes are organised by discipline, which leads to inefficient and suboptimal results. Engineers and architects work one after the other instead of collaborating across disciplines. This linear, “waterfall” approach leaves little room for iteration and optimisation in the overall system. Sulzer emphasises that this approach is no longer sufficient to meet the requirements of future, flexible energy systems.

    Inspiration from the chip industry
    Sulzer and Wetter propose a planning approach inspired by the chip industry. The electronics and computer scientist Alberto Sangiovanni-Vincentelli has revolutionised chip manufacturing with his “platform-based design”. This concept uses different levels of abstraction for the holistic analysis and optimisation of systems and creates universally valid, modularly combinable models. This model could also be applied to building and energy systems in order to automate and modularise planning.

    Advantages of a model-based planning process
    A model-based planning process would mean that models are used not only to analyse, but also to specify and build systems. These blueprints could be combined in a modular way to clearly define the design and functionality of a system. This would revolutionise planning, construction and operating processes and promote the necessary digitalisation and automation to achieve the ambitious decarbonisation targets.

    Pilot project at Empa
    The EU project GOES, led by Empa, is a first step towards the application of platform-based design in the energy sector. A pilot plant with 144 geothermal probes is being developed on the Empa campus in Dübendorf as the first application of this concept. The aim is to define the various abstraction levels of decision-making and to standardise the interfaces.

    The implementation of an automated and modular planning process is crucial for achieving climate neutrality by 2050, and Sulzer and Wetter are convinced that this paradigm shift will significantly increase the flexibility and efficiency of energy systems. The approach offers a promising solution to meet the challenges of decarbonisation and ensure security of supply.

  • Future-oriented heat supply in Zurich’s inner-city neighbourhoods

    Future-oriented heat supply in Zurich’s inner-city neighbourhoods

    In a strategic initiative to decarbonise the energy supply, the city of Zurich is identifying key districts in which the conventional heat supply is to be replaced by sustainable alternatives. Despite the challenge that locally available, renewable energy sources such as heat pumps are not sufficient to meet demand, a comprehensive study has identified possible solutions.

    Concept for densely built-up urban areas
    The Hard, Wiedikon and Sihlfeld-Werd neighbourhoods in particular are the focus of energy planning. These areas, which cover around seven per cent of the city’s settlement area, require an innovative approach due to their dense perimeter block development. The supply concept developed envisages the construction of thermal networks, which will account for around a quarter of the city’s new installations by 2040.

    New combined heat and power plants required
    To cover the calculated heat demand of 282 GWh/year, high-performance heating plants are required, comparable to the capacity of the existing Hagenholz waste incineration plant. Additional boilers are used to cover the peak load, which is particularly necessary on extremely cold days.

    Modular expansion and innovative heat sources
    The concept includes the use of diversified energy sources such as wastewater heat, river water, wood biomass and waste heat from computer centres, which is generated outside the supply area and fed into the neighbourhoods via a new main network. Implementation will be carried out in modular steps, with independent distribution centres being built in a timely manner to ensure that end consumers are connected quickly.

    The planning and implementation of this forward-looking project is now required in order to connect the first properties to the grid early in the 2030s. The replacement of the current 1,500 fossil-fuelled heating systems in these areas will make a decisive contribution to achieving Zurich’s climate targets.