Evelyn Bamberger

What options are there for implementing well-integrated solar systems that are also suitable for listed buildings (special architecture or historic interest)? What technologies are available for this, what do they cost compared to "ordinary" solar energy systems, and do they deliver the same yield? These questions were investigated by SPF on behalf of the Office for Energy and Transport of the Canton of Graubünden. As a result, a catalog of available solar technologies was published, which is also made available online here (in German).

RENOWAVE is a flagship project of the Swiss Innovation Agency (Innosuisse). It aims to reduce the CO₂ emissions of the Swiss building stock by renovating buildings and switching from fossil fuels to renewable energies.

The SolResHC project addresses research questions related to IEA PVPS Task 16 regarding "Solar Resource for High Penetration and Large Scale Applications".

Specifically, impacts of different weather scenarios on solar heating and cooling are assessed. Simulations for various future scenarios are carried out to determine the impact of weather data on the energy efficiency of different systems providing heating, cooling, domestic hot water and partly electricity for a multi-family house.

Furthermore, the influence of large feed-in from PV and other renewable energies to the electricity grid in Switzerland is analysed with a particular focus on the electricity price.

Off-grid locations, i.e. locations that are not connected to the public grid and are remote from major transport routes, are predestined for the use of local renewable energies such as solar energy, hydropower or wind power. In Switzerland, these locations include in particular alpine farms, mountain huts and mountain restaurants.

In this study commissioned by SwissEnergy, we have investigated the current energy supply situation of such sites and determined the technical possibilities for supplying them with renewable electricity and heat. In addition, we have looked at legal and economic aspects.

The CCT-Bat project is to develop a system test for home batteries, with which all relevant operating conditions can be tested within three days using the hardware in the loop principle, in order to determine the cycle efficiency and other key performance indicators. Different target functions of the systems (self-consumption, electricity tariffs, and grid benefits), as well as single and multi-family houses and different load profiles will be considered.

The aim of this project is the development of a fully configured and modular scalable solar thermal system for use in industry at various sites (production sites) and applications (heat sinks). For this purpose, a universally applicable smallest unit for heat supply is developed, which is adapted for the widest possible range of heat sinks. This unit consists primarily of a solar thermal heat generation system, and if applicable in combination with waste heat recovery and coupling to a district heating network. As an alternative to solar thermal, photovoltaics combined with heat pumps or possibly a combination of both approaches are investigated. Based on this, financing models are derived.

Several companies develop or already offer «smart heat pumps» on the market which combine heat pumps (HP) with photovoltaics (PV). These heat pumps are advertised to optimize self-consumption of the PV electricity as well as to deliver grid services to the utilities. In the CombiVolt project, the influence of intelligent control for heat pumps on both (self-consumption and grid-stability) is analyzed based on whole system testing in the lab in combination with simulations. The options to increase self-consumption by means of electrical or thermal storage are compared. Thereby the current tariff-schemes of today are considered as well as future scenarios for PV penetration and electricity tariffs.

CombiVolt is supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE).

The interest in solar process heat for industrial applications is increasing worldwide. For future perspectives and realization of further solar collector fields an assessment of the current state is necessary.

Within the framework of the project EvaSP (Evaluation of solar process heat systems) funded by the Swiss Federal Office for Energy SFOE, several solar collector fields used for processes heat in different industrial branches are energetically and economically evaluated. This project will give an overview of the performance of these collector fields as well as suggestions for suppliers and planners. Furthermore, the results of this evaluation will aid entrepreneurs and investors in the decision-making process and support the implementation of solar thermal energy in industry.