Energy strategy for the Grand-Fribourg considering the existing infrastructure and decentralized vs centralized investments

Semester project followed by a master project in industry

Spring-Fall 2025

Context

Utility companies have a key role in the energy transition. On the one hand, they possess the technical skills to perform the energy transition and own energy distribution networks and some electricity generation capacities. On the other hand, they are usually highly involved in communal and regional urban development plans. Therefore, they can have a close contact with the end customers. This combination of action power and human sized company is a key element explaining their pro-active role in the energy transition.

However, these companies do not have sufficient research and development resources to develop tools answering the many questions raised by the energy transition. Nevertheless, these tools exist within the academic field. The goal of this master project is to promote a technology transfer by providing a proof of concept to an industry using academic tools.

Realisation

The project is a collaboration with the utility company Groupe E. The master project will use two tools from the IPESE lab (EnergyScope and REHO) and provide an overview of solutions to questions typically asked within industry (listed below). The master project in industry will be held in Fribourg over the semester of fall 2025. Since a good knowledge of the tools is required, a semester project in the IPESE lab over spring 2025 is highly recommended to be prepared for the master project.

Tools:

  1. EnergyScope: optimize regional / national energy infrastructure in terms of investments and operation considering the existing infrastructure
  2. REHO: optimize the energy system of neighborhoods in terms of investments and operation

Objectives:

  1. Frame an energy transition strategy for the Grand Fribourg using EnergyScope and REHO.
  2. Assess the role of the existing energy infrastructure and the necessary infrastructure deployment and reinforcements.
  3. Determine the level of local versus regional investments to perform. Frame the optimal level of distributed energy capacities (ex: PV, heatpumps) to manage an increasing penetration of renewables and energy demands within a limited grid capacity.
  4. Localise geographically the areas with local investment potentials. Determine where renewable capacities should be deployed and energy infrastructure reinforced.
  5. Assess which market conditions (energy tariffs, interest rates, subsidies, …) are needed to influence local investment decisions.
  6. Development of an investment planning at local and regional scales to reach the objective in 2050 with intermediary objectives.
  7. Promote a technology transfer from academia to industry.

The student profile has to have a good skills in python and some knowledge of ampl. Knowledge about Quarto, SQL and data visualization is a plus. She/he has to be independent and proactive since the project involves two entities and will be supervised remotely by IPESE.

Contact [mailto:cedric.terrier@epfl.ch]