Municipal energy planning
STEEN Sustainable Energy leaves no stone unturned for its clients thanks to Urbio
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About STEEN Sustainable Energy
STEEN Sustainable Energy has sustainability written in its DNA. The Swiss company specializes in territorial energy concepts, studies and realizations of renewable energy networks. Their focus on low-temperature networks places them among the front-runners that provide truly comprehensive solutions which valorize local resources at unbeatable energy tariffs.
The ability to explore very diverse solutions, to visualize them as maps and synthetic tables, and then incorporate them directly into our reports made the process more efficient and our customer that much more satisfied.
Michael Berner, Project engineer
The challenge
A Swiss municipality mandated STEEN Sustainable Energy to provide a comprehensive energy plan required to obtain the European Energy Award label (Cité de l’Energie).
The challenge was to decarbonize the historic center without refurbishing any of the protected heritage buildings. The commune specifically asked for a complete overview of possible solutions, and asked STEEN Sustainable Energy to “leave no stone unturned”.
“We will be able to work seamlessly with our advanced simulation tools based on the data created with Urbio.”
Michael Berner, Project engineer
The solution
Thanks to Urbio’s generative design technology, STEEN Sustainable Energy could rapidly and systematically explore dozens of scenarios. Whether to better understand the site’s current status, to evaluate the potential of natural potentials, or to compare different district heating layouts, the team of engineers could confront their intuition with auto-generated factual figures, and iterate towards improved solutions.
After carefully comparing the scenarios according to financial and technical criteria (subsidies, investments, supplied energy…), 3 hand-picked scenarios were finally presented to the municipality. The results included municipal-scale key performance indicators (KPIs) and targets, with geolocated measures at the building scale, accessible through dynamic maps. “The ability to incorporate the maps and values created in Urbio directly into our reports made the process that much more efficient.”
The submission of the final energy concept to the commune immediately triggered discussions on the subsequent detailed studies for which STEEN Sustainable Energy could be mandated. “We will be able to work seamlessly with our advanced simulation tools directly from the data created with Urbio.”
