Overview

Our objectives

Assessment of the sustainability and resilience of the future renewable-based

Swiss energy system with a long term perspective focusing on 2035 and 2050

 

Development of an integrated quantitative analytical framework

based on modelling tools and indicator databases

Engagement of stakeholders

for the evaluation of indicators, as well as future energy pathways and their sustainability and resilience implications and related competing objectives

Application of the tool box on real case studies

on Swiss national level and for several regional or topic-focused case studies and develop strategies for the transition towards sustainable and resilient energy systems including roadmaps, strategy documents etc. jointly with corresponding stakeholders.

Diverse competences in the team

The interdisciplinary consortium of SURE consists of ten well-established research partners and fifteen cooperation partners, which form a powerful and diverse consortium needed to tackle the research and implementation challenges related to this project. Our competences involve:

Energy technologies (modeling of demand, supply and transportation of energy)

Macroeconomics and management

Spatial modelling with high resolution

Political Science and Law

Environmental science and decision support

Computer science

Perspectives form industrial and governmental stakeholders

Main research activities

  • Establishment of a comprehensive indicator database that includes sustainability, resilience, technical, economic and social indicators.
  • Modelling of infrastructure that is crucial and central to a sustainable and resilient energy system, such as electricity, gas and heat grids ​
  • Demand simulation that includes material cycles and considers consumer behavior, effects of digitalization and circular economy
  • Environmental assessment of sustainability and resilience using life cycle analysis, which will provide a broad set of environmental indicators to be integrated into the database
  • Analysis of macro-economic impacts and business cases
  • Spatial analysis of the deployment of renewable energy and spatial disruptive events
  • Machine learning approaches on big data to create a reconciled uncertainty quantification framework
  • A model-based interactive environment to conduct surveys and choice experiments to understand citizens’ behavior towards sustainability and their reactions in disruptive events, which incorporates gamification concepts increase the engagement of citizens and stakeholders
  • A stakeholder forum for scoping and evaluation of relevant sustainability and resilience indicators (quantification of uncertainty in energy system) and transformation pathways
  • Multi-criteria decision analysis using a broad perspective (techno-economic, political and social) to evaluate sustainability and resilience objectives and their reconciliation
  • Policy design and analysis of their effectiveness and acceptability to implement them with greater support from the public, and
  • Analysis of necessary changes to the Swiss legal framework needed to achieve higher levels of resilience and sustainability in the energy system
The case study of CANTON TICINO adopts the methods and tools developed by the consortium and applies them in a regional context to assess and ensure the coherence between federal and regional sustainability and resilience solutions that meet the aspirations and expectations of local actors.
 
The case study at the URBAN AND SUB-URBAN SCALE with Zurich as a starting point adapts the concept of the sustainability and resilience of the energy system in order to additionally take into account aspects that could arise from the specificities of urban energy planning.
 
The case study on sustainability and resilience of the TRANSPORT SECTOR AND ENERGY-INTENSIVE INDUSTRIES investigates the interdependence of the operator of the Swiss train system (SBB) and the Swiss energy system to assess specific impacts of the activities of large actors of the energy system on sustainability and resilience, as well as resilience and sustainability aspects related to process heat provision for industrial companies and areas.

Our case studies

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