This report discusses the modelling of demand and supply within the energy system of the city of Zurich. Based on the literature, we qualitatively examine the impacts of external shocks such as heat waves, cold spells, political or public opposition, and full technology diffusion. The findings indicate that Zurich’s electrical grid can likely manage high penetration of e-mobility, PV, and heat pumps with minor adjustments. However, weather-related shocks could push heat pumps to their operational limits, highlighting the need for more detailed load and demand dynamics data in future analyses, namely in the report “Report on grid and infrastructure security of the city of Zurich.”
Finally, one major contribution of this report involves the development, extension, and comparison of three district heating (DH) algorithms. Each of the three distinct DH-grid planning algorithms offers unique advantages and is suited to different use cases. The first algorithm suits decentralized district heating with undefined heat center locations. The second provides optimized routing with a detailed model of investment costs. The third one offers realistic routing along streets but lacks post-processing optimization as in the Optimized Routing algorithm. Two of these algorithms were applied to a sample area in Zurich, revealing similar grid layouts. Based on the Optimized Routing algorithm, we will conduct resilience analyses of Zurich’s urban energy system up to 2050 in the report “Report on grid and infrastructure security of the city of Zurich.
