Urbio Celebrates Five Years of Innovation in District Heating Planning Across Europe

From EPFL spin-off to international player: reflecting on five years of developing software tools to accelerate the energy transition

A Five-Year Journey in Service of Decarbonization

In January 2020, three co-founders took the leap: Sébastien Cajot, Nils Schüler, and Nicolas Sommer officially created Urbio at Campus Energypolis in Sion, Switzerland. Five years later, the decision made during a pitch workshop organized by The Ark Foundation in May 2019 has given rise to a company that now counts over 15 team members and clients across multiple European countries.

The timing was strategic. In 2020, Europe was intensifying its climate commitments, and district heating was emerging as an essential solution for decarbonizing building heat. This context created growing demand for sophisticated district heating planning tools—exactly what Urbio was developing.

Simplifying the Complexity of Planning

District heating network planning represents a multidimensional challenge. It requires simultaneously analyzing building energy demand, identifying available heat sources, optimizing pipeline routing, sizing infrastructure, and evaluating economic viability—all while accounting for territorial specificities and regulatory constraints.

This complexity guided team composition at Urbio. Recruited profiles span data science, artificial intelligence, software development, and energy engineering. This diversity of expertise enables the creation of district heating planning software that doesn't simply map data, but provides genuine decision intelligence.

The platform integrates multiple technologies: AI algorithms for predictive demand analysis, geospatial visualization to identify high-potential zones, simulation engines to test different deployment scenarios, and techno-economic optimization modules to size infrastructure cost-effectively.

Democratizing Access to Advanced Energy Planning

The initial observation was straightforward: existing tools for district heating planning were either too generic, too complex, or nonexistent. Energy planners spent months manually compiling data in spreadsheets, creating maps in general-purpose GIS software, then performing calculations in separate simulation tools.

The software developed by Urbio unifies these steps into a cohesive platform. For engineering consultancies conducting feasibility studies, this means going from several months to just a few weeks to produce a territorial energy plan. For utilities planning their expansion, it enables rapid identification and prioritization of development zones. For municipalities, it facilitates evaluation of district heating potential across their territory.

This operational efficiency has direct impact: more studies can be conducted, more projects can be evaluated, and ultimately, more district heating systems can be deployed.

European Expansion as Market Validation

Since its creation, Urbio has expanded its geographic presence well beyond Switzerland. This expansion has been a response to organic demand. Throughout Europe, the same challenges emerged: how to efficiently plan district heating? How to prioritize investments? How to accelerate deployment?

Urbio's clients now include utilities seeking to diversify their energy mix, district heating companies looking to optimize existing networks, engineering firms executing municipal mandates, and public authorities developing their territorial energy strategies.

Each national context brings its specificities—different regulatory frameworks, varied energy mixes, contrasting urban densities—but the fundamental need remains the same: high-performance tools for district heating planning.

Learnings from Five Years in the Field

Five years of experience on real projects have enabled considerable platform refinement. Initial deployments in Switzerland served as learning ground, revealing which functionalities were truly critical for users and which data was essential to integrate.

For example, the importance of building data granularity became evident: knowing only the total consumption of a neighborhood isn't sufficient—you need to drill down to individual building level to precisely identify profitable connections. Similarly, the ability to scenario progressive network deployment and rapidly conduct sensitivity analyses proved crucial, as few projects develop all at once.

A Pivotal Moment for District Heating in Europe

Urbio's fifth anniversary coincides with a particular moment for the sector. Investments in district heating across Europe are reaching unprecedented levels. The European Energy Efficiency Directive is pushing member states to develop their thermal infrastructure. Cities are committing to carbon neutrality targets that require profound transformation of their heating systems.

In this context, digital planning tools are no longer a "nice-to-have" but an operational necessity. The volume of projects to evaluate, the complexity of analyses to conduct, and climate urgency make the use of advanced technologies indispensable for accelerating the process.

Urbio's positioning as specialized software for district heating planning stems directly from this landscape.

Outlook and Future Developments

Urbio's team continues enriching the platform with new functionalities. One aspect in high demand: Urbio's API integration with other platforms, such as client websites or CRMs (read more about Urbio's API here).

The objective remains constant: provide energy sector professionals with the best possible tools to plan and deploy efficient, profitable district heating systems. Each added feature, each optimized algorithm, each improved interface directly contributes to accelerating the energy transition.

Five years represents a significant milestone for a technology company, but in the context of Europe's energy transformation, it's only the beginning. The coming decades will see massive district heating deployment across the continent, and Urbio intends to play a central role by providing the software infrastructure that will make this large-scale deployment possible.