In these times of climate, energy and economic crises, sustainable solutions are becoming more crucial than ever. For example, data management in a digital world is a major issue for the energy industry. Technologies such as machine learning and AI provide invaluable insights into understanding, forecasting, and improving supply and demand management, paving the way for new opportunities for effective infrastructure management.
Indeed, the challenges of the energy transition require energy distributors to imagine tomorrow’s solutions while continuing their day-to-day operations. Faced with increasingly complex challenges, they may lack the resources to rapidly advance innovations crucial to this transition. For this reason, Viteos entered into a five-year collaboration with CSEM in early 2023 to jointly develop innovative and sustainable energy solutions.
In 2015, Viteos and the CSEM had already launched a solar façade composed of solar panels entirely developed and produced in Switzerland. Robust, efficient and aesthetic, this façade paved the way for modern and attractive solar architecture. Seven years later, they are renewing their partnership with the launch of a first project to optimize heat production using an innovative approach to simulate the heating demands of the city of Neuchâtel.
The objective of this collaboration is to better control customer supply and demand, as well as the carbon footprint of production systems. The combination of CSEM’s knowledge in the fields of numerical modeling of complex systems on the one hand, and Viteos’ know-how in the engineering and operation of energy networks on the other, is proving to be very useful. However, it is not only CSEM’s research and development skills that play a central role: “Our experience in knowledge and technology transfer will also be decisive over the next five years,” explains Christophe Ballif, head of CSEM’s Sustainable Energy activities (on the right in the picture).
Innovative projects to achieve a sustainable energy transition
Over the next few months, the foundations of the collaboration between Viteos and CSEM will be laid during joint workshops. “We will determine the ideas and technologies that we wish to develop together to actively play our role as a major player in the energy transition,” said Jérôme Le Gouévec, Director of Asset Management and Strategic Projects at Viteos, in charge of innovation (on the left in the picture).
Among the solutions considered is the idea of dynamic forecasting of the production of photovoltaic installations based on more precise meteorological data, which can allow for a better anticipation and valorization of the facilities’ operations. Answers to other questions such as the more efficient use of global energy systems (production, storage, distribution, etc.), especially electricity, will also be sought in order to provide an ever more efficient service to customers.
