DeCarbCH

DeCarbonisation of Cooling and Heating

DeCarbCH is a research project sponsored by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy’s “SWEET” programme (Call 1-2020) and coordinated by the University of Geneva

The DeCarbCH project addresses the colossal challenge of decarbonisation of heating and cooling in Switzerland within three decades and it prepares the grounds for negative CO2 emissions.

The overall objective of the project (with the ultimate target of net zero emissions) is to facilitate, speed up and de-risk the implementation of renewables for heating and cooling in the residential sector (for various scales and degrees of urbanization) as well as for the service and the industry sector by

  • providing guidance on which combinations of technologies to implement where, to which extent and when,
  • developing, piloting and demonstrating combinations of commercially viable technologies thereof, consequently helping to drive down the cost of renewable heating and cooling in all sectors,
  • conducting model-based analyses that support planning, inter alia by the development of scenarios representing the supply, distribution and demand of renewable heating and cooling services,
  • quantifying the value of both renewable heating and cooling as well as of negative CO2 emissions,
  • providing evidence-based guidance on how to enable the implementation of renewable heating and cooling by policies and by legal measures as well as by engaging with the relevant actors and ensuring the necessary level of acceptance.

The DeCarbCH project focusses on three main components, i.e.

  • advanced renewable energy and transformation technologies,
  • thermal grids (for heating and cooling), and
  • energy storage.

For these, we establish optimal combinations (in technical, economic and environmental terms) as well as necessary and desirable conditions for their implementation.

A solution-oriented, interdisciplinary approach is applied for the project as a whole and within each work package.

The work packages deal with subsystems (e.g. WP03 on grids in combination with renewables and energy storage, WP04/WP10 on industry and WP05/WP11 on primarily standalone renewable energy-driven system solutions), they represent case studies (WP06 for Zurich and WP07 for Romandie) or they apply specific approaches (legal and socio-economic integration in WP02/WP09 and energy system modelling in WP01/WP08), leading to recommendations for policy makers and other stakeholders.

Link to the DeCarbCH Activities Overview

Link to the SFOE SWEET Website

News

3rd SWEET Conference 2024, 4 September 2024, Eventforum Bern
04.09.2024

The conference offered a platform for exchange between research and implementation. A focus was on “Communication to business and politics”.

2. Tagung zum Energie- und Nachhaltigkeitsrecht, 30. August 2024
30.08.2024

Das Thema der Grenzen der Regulierung im Energierecht wird aus rechtlicher, politischer, technischer und ökonomischer Warte beleuchtet.

Heat pumps show their muscle
30.07.2024

Feedback and article from the heat pump conference in Bern in June 2024 organized by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE)

Leveraging product-specific exemplar profiles: Heat pump integration in the Swiss chocolate industry
18.07.2024

The study identifies key integration opportunities for HPs that are both economically viable and environmentally impactful

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