Investment and operation planning under uncertainty for (future) urban energy systems

In this project we develop a robust decision-support toolbox that can generate reliable long-term energy system planning, with no-regrets principles explicitly embedded. The goal of this project is to integrate (1) the short term energy needs and (2) long term sustainability transition of sportparks with academic research on optimal energy infrastructure (3) dimensioning and operations. Short term needs include expanded electricity capacity for lightning sportparks due to intensifying use and making optimal investment plans of infrastructure expansion on sport parks. Long term developments of sport parks include the transition away from natural gas, the energy harvesting potential of sportparks (considering its relative wide spaces in the dense urban environment) and the (possible) neighborhood energy serving functions of a sport park. The scientific relevance of the project lies in formulating integrated local multi-carrier grids as a solvable optimization problem, which is necessary but unprecedented. New modelling approaches are needed that reflect the physical characteristics of various energy distribution, storage and conversion technologies at the accuracy for realistic long-term planning, while staying computationally feasible, and bearing the current capacity restrictions in mind.