About

Research

My group’s research is on the global transition to a 100% clean and renewable energy system. This includes designing future energy systems that are able to work with high shares of variable renewable electricity. A prerequisite for this is understanding the spatiotemporal variability of renewable generation and demand. But to develop a truly sustainable energy system it is also necessary to consider trade-offs between the energy transition and other concerns such as biodiversity protection. → More on my research areas.

In the course of my work I created and lead development of the open-source energy system modelling tool Calliope. I am also the creator and lead developer of the Renewables.ninja platform to simulate wind and solar power plants worldwide. I am a member of the Open Energy Modelling Initiative, which promotes openness and transparency in energy system modelling, and of the Open Power System Data project, which provides a free and open data platform for power system modelling. → More on my software projects.

MSc thesis topics

You can see the currently available MSc thesis topics here. If you have an idea for a project of your own, you can get in touch, though my capacity to supervise is normally limited to topics that are directly related to the research areas of my group (see research topics).

Teaching

Online textbook: Energy System Modelling

www.modelling-energy-systems.org is an in-development, free and open online textbook for two MSc courses I teach, SET3061 Energy System Modelling (4 ECTS, taught in Matlab) and SEN1511 Engineering Optimization and Integrating Renewables in Electricity Markets (5 ECTS, taught in Python). Content-wise, the courses are closely related, and deal with using mathematical modelling and optimisation methods to address decision problems in energy systems: e.g., dispatch of power plants, market clearing, as well as capacity expansion and other planning problems.

Textbook: Introduction to Systems Analysis: Mathematically Modeling Natural Systems

Introduction to Systems Analysis: Mathematically Modeling Natural Systems is an updated English version of an originally German-language textbook on applying simple mathematical models to environmental problems.

See www.systems-analysis.org for more info and interactive demonstrations, and github.com/sjpfenninger/modelingbook-web for code.