Low-carbon fuels are essential where direct electrification is difficult, especially in aviation, shipping and the chemical industry. But they are not automatically clean, cheap or secure. Their climate benefit and supply depend on where they are produced, which electricity powers...
Coffee producers depend on reliable power for processing and irrigation, yet many rural farms remain off-grid and exposed to volatile diesel prices. A master’s project at ETH Zurich’s Power Systems Laboratory explores this challenge through the world’s first large-scale agriphotovoltaics...
Densification is hailed as the key to the sustainable transformation of our cities. However, its implementation through the pursuit of “building new and better” is actually hurting the environment more. Our latest study reveals flaws in the sustainability of modern,...
Switzerland’s energy transition is accelerating, but planners and analysts have long faced fragmented or incomplete data on how rooftop photovoltaics, heat pumps, batteries, and electric vehicles may spread across the country. Our recent publication introduces a new open dataset that...
Every two years, the ETH Energy Science Center hosts a summer school about energy. This year, the focus was “navigating the transition in an insecure world”. Energy Blog editors Lingxi Tang and Jonathan Peel were among the 60 attending researchers...
In a prospective life cycle assessment, we assessed and compared the environmental impacts of technological options to decarbonise the shipping sector, comparing e-ammonia, e-methanol, e-LNG, e-FT diesel and ship-based carbon capture and storage. The findings highlight that while no single...
Power outages affect individuals, cutting off access to services like lighting, air conditioning, and communication. Here, we draw on our recent paper to explain how power system failures affect individuals, how we can measure the human impacts of outages, and...
How can the Bündner Rheintal, an urban-industrial cluster, achieve cost-effective decarbonization despite having CO₂ emissions per capita that are two times higher than the Swiss average? Researchers from Empa, in collaboration with the Canton of Graubünden, regional energy providers, and...
With the Swiss energy transition underway, homeowners might consider investing in a photovoltaics (PV) system. However, the optimal PV system design depends on the homeowner’s preferences: We show that if the primary goal is to save money, one might favor...
Private investors allocate more money to green mutual funds if they receive an education about sustainable finance. We designed a crash course in sustainable investing and showed its power to help individuals align their values with their money.
To achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, Switzerland anticipates significantly expanding solar photovoltaics and electrifying heating and transport, coinciding with the country’s aimed nuclear phase-out. However, this development creates a seasonal imbalance, with high summer electricity generation but peak demand in...
Cities and their urban transformations are critical to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Our new research shows that European cities tend to prioritize environmental and technical issues, such as biodiversity or transportation, while their residents prefer issues linked to their...
