Technology Assessment Group

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.

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:

• Perspectives of Power-to-X technologies in Switzerland.
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) of Nuclear Power in Switzerland.
• Potentials, costs and environmental assessment of electricity generation technologies.

New publications in scientific journals by TA-Group members:

• Rebecca Lordan-Perret, Austin L. Wright, Peter Burgherr, Matteo Spada, Robert Rosner (2019). Attacks on energy infrastructure targeting democratic institutions. 
• Patrick Gasser, Peter Lustenberger, Marco Cinelli, Wansub Kim, Matteo Spada, Peter Burgherr, Stefan Hirschberg, Bozidar Stojadinovic and Tian Yin Sun (2019). A review on resilience assessment of energy systems. Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure. 
• 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