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If you are interested in working on a Bachelor, Semester, or Master project with us, you can find the projects we currently offer below or on external page SIROP. For further information, visit our student projects page for more insight into previous student work done with the Chair.

In case you have project ideas not currently related to any of these projects, please feel free to propose your own project and send your ideas, along with your CV and transcripts, to .

District heating distribution network capital cost in Switzerland

Increasing digitalisation and AI adoption are paralleled by the expansion of digital infrastructures, such as data centres (DCs). Their sector-coupling capabilities raise the question of where they could be integrated into multi-energy systems economically. One important aspect of their waste heat reuse is the cost of the district heating infrastructure required to distribute the heat to consumers. District heating distribution network costs have been found to be dominated by the capital cost. While these have been studied for the United Kingdom and countries of the European Union, a similar assessment is still missing in Switzerland.

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Published since: 2026-08-13

Organization Chair of Energy Systems Analysis

Hosts Schmidt Franziska , McKenna Russell

Topics Engineering and Technology

Spatiotemporal modelling of regional data centre expansion

Increasing digitalisation and AI adoption are paralleled by the expansion of digital infrastructures, such as data centres (DCs). As large, partly flexible electricity consumers with sector-coupling capabilities, where and when they will be built is highly relevant from a multi-energy systems perspective. However, while the spatiotemporal diffusion of technologies such as solar photovoltaic (PV), heat pumps, or battery electric vehicles has already been modelled in the past, such efforts have remained at low spatial resolution when it comes to digitalisation-related technologies. Similarly, while existing DC locations are highly clustered in urban areas, it is uncertain whether future location patterns could be influenced by different factors, e.g., power access. This creates a need for methodologies to assess where and when future DCs are likely to be located.

Keywords

Data center, Spatiotemporal technology diffusion, Energy systems, Switzerland