Using a simulator app to plan the power supply

The new online app Powercheck.ch of the OST - Ostschweizer Fachhochschule (University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland) wants to enable everyone to discuss and plan our electricity future based on real data of the Swiss electricity supply. Although the power supply is only a part of the total energy consumption (excl. e.g. heating, mobility - mainly covered by fossil fuels) with about 25 percent today, the importance of electricity is constantly increasing. Powercheck project manager Boris Meier from the Institute of Energy Technology (IET) at the OST assumes that "in the course of electrification, for example in vehicles or in building heating and cooling, the largest part of our total energy consumption will be electric by 2050."

Simulate with real, physical facts

Go all-in on solar expansion or prefer a diverse mix of solar, hydro and wind power? Build huge battery storage or more pumped storage power plants? Import electricity in winter or be completely self-sufficient? From simple simulations to in-depth elaboration of a realistic electricity scenario among subject matter experts, Powecheck.ch leaves users completely free to decide how they want to use the simulation data. Each scenario can be saved and sent to friends, colleagues or interested experts, for example. On Powercheck.ch, several scenarios can be compared and contrasted.

With the app, the IET research team wants to make a contribution to objectifying the sometimes emotional energy strategy debate in Switzerland. "Anyone can use our app to simulate which energy mix of production, consumption and storage would have which consequences," says project team member Silvan Schmid. After all, no argument changes the physical facts behind the electricity market: production and consumption must be balanced at all times of the year, and the storage of surpluses from a potentially massive expansion of renewable energies is currently an unresolved issue and would require an expansion of storage capacities.

Interrelationships clearly presented

Powercheck.ch displays such correlations in clear tables and graphics. The app is also more than meets the eye. With a total of more than 35,000 data values per year and per energy source and consumer in the background, Powercheck.ch is currently probably the most detailed, publicly available and free simulation of the Swiss power supply, as the IET emphasizes. Among other things, the real weather data of the Federal Office of Meteorology are stored as well as the storage capacities in pumped storage power plants, the inflows into the hydropower plants in Switzerland or the total radiation data for solar energy as well as the wind values. With the real data between 2014 and the end of 2019, interested experts, scientists, politicians and other interested parties, but also skeptics of the energy transition, can compile their own scenarios and compare them with the current actual state of the Swiss power supply or with the scenarios of other users.

Source: OST - University of Applied Sciences of Eastern Switzerland