VSE Distribution Grid Planning (Energy Future 2050: Sub-project 8)

Partners: ETHZ (FEN), VSE and a selection of Swiss utilities
Duration: 10/2022 - 12/2023
Funding: VSE
Project Leader: ETHZ (FEN)
Project Team: Dr. Turhan Demiray, Dr. Alexander Fuchs, Dr. C. Yaman Evrenosoglu, Philippe Buchecker

external pageVSE Energy Future 2050call_made (German)

external pageResultscall_made and the external pagereportcall_made(without the results of Sub-project 8)

Determine the cost-efficient reinforcement and expansion needs for a representative selection of Swiss distribution networks and scenarios  based on the "Energy Future 2050" (external pageEnergiezukunft 2050call_made) project performed by VSE. This sub-study contributes to the "Sub-project 8" (Teilprojekt) on "Distribution grid" in the external pagereportcall_made published by VSE.

The study is carried out on the basis of the high-voltage grids of the participating DSOs and in 7 representative "deep dive" areas with medium and low-voltage grids. In addition to the 3 overall studies for high-, medium- and low-voltage grids, the distribution system operator-specific results of the analyses are of great interest.

FEN's role is to perform the grid planning for the (parts of) HV-, MV, and LV-grids of each utility shared within the context of the project. The time-series at building level for household appliances, solar PVs, heat-pumps and electric mobility are created by other partners (i.e., EBP and EMPA) for the determined scenarios in hourly time resolution.

VSE publishes its own projections on the medium to long-term development of the energy industry in general and the electricity industry in particular periodically. The aim is to show the industry's view on the energy future. This should also serve to better classify and discuss the corresponding studies of the federal government as well as of other associations and think tanks and to make a significant contribution to the Swiss energy policy.

The VSE would like to relaunch the 2012 preview towards the year 2022 and publish it in a new form. For this purpose, a cross-disciplinary cooperation within the framework of a large-scale project is planned, which, in addition to the VSE and industry-related service providers, also includes academic institutions. The project with the VSE board as the client is organized accordingly in several sub-projects. In terms of content, the project "Energy Future 2050" (formerly "Preview 2022") is to be based on the key topics of climate, security of supply, decentralized supply, storage/flexibility, import dependency vs. integration into the European energy system and hydrogen, whereby Switzerland is to be used as the frame of reference, taking European developments into account.

An important element for the creation of the desired study will be a central calculation model. This has the task of processing all inputs from the Swiss energy system and (in simplified form) from neighboring countries in all scenarios and calculating technical and economic results from them. If necessary, the central calculation model will interact with further, specific decentralized calculation models, which calculate specific in-depth topics.

A second important element for the preparation of the desired study or specifically for the "Subproject 8 - Distribution Grid" will be the execution of a dedicated distribution grid study (grid levels 2 - 7). will be. Based on the scenarios of the central calculation model for the Swiss energy system, the effects of the the impact of the energy supply transformation on the distribution grids in Switzerland will be analyzed. Switzerland. The aim is to determine the (technical and economic) expansion requirements for the distribution grids in in Switzerland from the present into the future.