Energy Informatics

The Swiss Energy Strategy 2050 resides in three pillars: increasing the energy efficiency (including the building sector), increasing the use of renewable energy (by their promotion) and withdrawal from nuclear energy. These objectives are perfectly in-line with the Energy Informatics concepts: to exploit state-of-the-art Information and Communication Technologies to tackle global warming and climate change challenges, to increase integration of renewable and distributed energy sources by making energy systems smarter, and to increase energy efficiency beyond what improvements at component level can achieve. In that vein, the Energy Informatics Group at Idiap researches into ways of simulating energy transition pathways with intelligent control and adjustment mechanisms of evolving buildings with retrofitting and use, renewable energy production and energy storage in a changing climate.