Technology Assessment Group
The Technology Assessment group is part of the multi-disciplinary Laboratory for Energy systems Analysis (LEA) at the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) and is the continuation of the former GaBE Project. Technology Assessment incorporates a comprehensive range of research areas to achieve three main objectives:
- To improve understanding and thereby enable comparisons of current energy technologies and future energy options for the electricity, heating and transport sectors based on environmental, economic and socially relevant factors.
- To provide quantitative, systematic, and interdisciplinary assessments of energy technologies and energy supply strategies through the development and application of consistent methodological frameworks and databases.
- To support rational decision-making for sustainable development in the Swiss and international energy sectors, and to communicate balanced research findings to decision-makers and stakeholders.
Figure 1: Analytical framework for comprehensive technology assessment.
Latest News
Using (waste) heat to cool buildings
In a stakeholder event representatives from research and industry were able to gather information on the results of the NRP 70 joint project THRIVE (Thermally Driven Heat Pumps for Substitution of Electricity and Fossil Fuels). PSI’s Technology Assessment Group carried out an integrated sustainability assessment of the THRIVE system and assessed its performance in various application scenarios.
New Tools by TA-Group members:
- Cinelli, M., Spada, M., Zhang, Y., Kim, W., Burgherr, P. (2018). MCDA Index Tool. An interactive software to develop indices and rankings.
- Linden, D., Cinelli, M., Spada, M., Becker, W. and Burgherr, P. (2018). Composite Indicator Analysis and Optimization (CIAO) Tool
New article by TA-Group members:
- "Can renewables fill the power gap?" by Christian Bauer (April 2018). SCCER-SoE blog.
- "Current and future environmental performance of passenger cars" by Brian Cox, Christian Bauer and Chris Mutel (May 2019). Policy Brief
New reports from major projects led by TA-Group members:
- Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Nuclear Power in Switzerland.
- Potentials, costs and environmental assessment of electricity generation technologies.
- ISCHESS: Integration of stochastic renewables in the Swiss electricity supply system.
New publications in scientific journals by TA-Group members:
- Wansub Kim, Peter Burgherr, Matteo Spada, Peter Lustenberger, Anna Kalinina and Stefan Hirschberg (2019). Energy-related Severe Accident Database (ENSAD): cloud-based geospatial platform. Big Earth Data
- Tobias Schmidt, Martin Beuse, Zhang Xiaojin, Bjarne Steffen, Simon F Schneider, Alejandro Pena-Bello, Christian Bauer and David Parra (2019). Additional emissions and cost from storing electricity in stationary battery systems. Environmental Science & Technology.
- Tom Terlouw, Xiaojin Zhang. Christian Bauer and Tarek Alskaif (2019). Towards the determination of metal criticality in home-based battery systems using a Life Cycle Assessment approach. Journal of Cleaner Production, Vol. 221, pp. 667-677
- Tom Terlouw, Tarek AlSkaif, Christian Bauer and Wilfried van Sark (2019). Multi-objective optimization of energy arbitrage in community energy storage systems using different battery technologies. Applied Energy, Vol. 239, pp. 356-372
- Laurent Vandepaer, Karin Treyer, Chris Mutel, Christian Bauer and Ben Amor (2018). The integration of long-term marginal electricity supply mixes in the ecoinvent consequential database version 3.4 and examination of modeling choices. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment