Smart Design of Resilient Local Energy Communities

Background:

Switzerland stands at a pivotal moment in its energy future, facing a classic “energy trilemma”: how do we enhance distributed energy resources (DER) integration, maximize the use of renewable and sustainable energy, and ensure the stability and reliability of the power supply—even as we integrate more solar panels, heat pumps, and electric vehicles? Innovations in decentralized energy—like rooftop PV, heat pumps, and electric vehicles—offer new possibilities but also introduce conflicts between the trilemma’s goals Recent legislation, particularly the Mantelerlass package, is designed to accelerate our energy transition. It creates powerful new opportunities, such as Local Energy Communities (LEGs), enabling neighborhoods and communities to share, produce, and manage their own green energy locally. These legal changes aim to boost energy self-consumption, slash carbon emissions, and make the grid more resilient and cost-effective. But... they are really promoting and achieving that? Consider the backbone of our energy system: the network infrastructure. Like an insurance policy, the grid is designed to withstand even the toughest scenarios, delivering electricity with over 99.997% reliability. Yet, as communities begin to produce and consume more of their own energy, peak demands on the grid won't be reduced. Without smart incentives and controls, infrastructure could be strained—leading to expensive upgrades, grid bottlenecks, and a slower path to renewable transition. In addition, Switzerland has pledged to phase out nuclear energy. As solar power expands, seasonal imbalances will grow. Winter, especially, promises new hurdles: as heating and transportation go electric, can we avoid importing vast amounts of electricity—or does increased self-consumption fall short when the days are darkest? All of this leads to a central question—one that sits at the very heart of Switzerland’s energy future: How can we design smart, resilient local energy communities that truly solve the energy trilemma—delivering sustainability, affordability, and reliability all at once, even as the ground beneath our feet continues to shift?

Your Challenge:

With access to real datasets from five Swiss low-voltage (LV) networks—including network topologies, household consumption, and simulated PV generation, EV charging, and heat pump load profiles based on Swiss Scenarios for 2050 (15-minute data for one year)—your task is to design, simulate, and rigorously assess novel strategies for local energy systems. We will offer you an evaluator that assesses how good a solution fits for the 3 pillars, DER’s integration, sovereignty / sustainability, and quality of supply. 

Your goal is to propose and rigorously assess strategies for achieving an optimal local energy system design. This is an open challenge, so you are free to apply any methodology you find suitable—whether it’s straightforward exploratory analysis or advanced optimization and machine learning techniques—depending on your skills, creativity, and interests. 

Why Participate: 

1. Explore the real implications of Switzerland’s most ambitious energy legislation
2. Influence the national debate with your critical analysis and simulation results
3. Combine data analytics, optimization skills and policy thinking for real-world impact