Energy Flows Monitoring at the Cantonal Level

As an increased number of measures (Swiss or European level) aim at developing more sustainable policies for energy management and reduction of CO2 emissions in particular (for example, the 3x20 policy), very few tools currently exist at the regional/cantonal level to monitor the multiple existing energy flows. Energy issues at local and territorial level have become considerably more complex in the last twenty years for a number of reasons. First, new technologies penetrated the market and now compete with fossil-based conversion systems. In addition, energy systems are evolving to systematically become multi-fluid and multi-services. Finally, local and state authorities have taken up a stronger and broader role in terms of energy policy and have committed to ambitious goals in terms of both increased energy efficiency and implementation of renewables. Within this project, a decision-support and monitoring tool for policy makers has been developed, which includes thorough information on the most prominent energy aspects of the Canton of Vaud, and paves the way for establishing more indicators covering environmental and economic aspects. The development of a web-based tool aimed at visualizing the entire energy chain, from energy sources to end-use sectors at the level of a whole Swiss Canton is thus presented here. This tool provides a unifying structure for all the useful information on energy sources, vectors and final consumptions, this approach thereby giving access to a global overview, understanding and monitoring of the energy supply and demand characteristics of any given Canton (or any equivalent subnational territorial entity). The final goal of this approach is to give access to the direct visualization of all energy flows on the platform, thus translating and broadening the national statistics on the energy chain up to the cantonal (territorial) level. Therefore, this innovative tool will allow quantifying energy profiles, modelling conversion nodes along the energy chain, as well as assessing the overall energy balance per end-use sector. This very innovative platform constitutes a centralized energy data repository as well as a quantitative evaluation tool, encompassing most useful energy sources.