Data-driven Energy System Analysis

• Collaboration with WWF and the Science-Based Target Network to validate city-level carbon emission targets. Cities across the world are engaged with climate action and seek guidance to ensure that their targets fulfill their share of the global effort to limit global warming in light of their local circumstances and equity in line with the Paris Agreement. Guidance is needed to review validity and to ensure the environmental integrity of cities’ short- and long-term targets, as well as their monitoring and reporting approaches. (08/2022-04/2023).
  
  
• The EU Horizon Project WHITECYCLE aims to develop a circular economy to convert complex waste containing textile made of plastic into products with high added value. The public/private European partnership includes 17 organizations. (06/2022-05/2026). The WhiteCycle ambition by 2030 is to foster the annual recycling of more than 2 million tons of the third most widely used plastic in the world. This project should make it possible to reduce CO2 emissions by approximately 2 million tons and avoid the landfilling or incineration of more than 1.8 million tons of plastic each year. The project website is hosted by the consortium leader Michelin.
  
  
• H2020 Project EERAdata. "Towards a FAIR and open data ecosystem in the low carbon energy research community"(03/2020-02/2023). 6 European partners, led by Valeria & August. The EERAdata project develops, explores, and tests a FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, re-usable) and open data ecosystem in the low-carbon energy field. Shared data and transparent management of data provide the basis for the industry to develop new solutions and for society to choose, monitor, and implement sustainable transition pathways. Project website 
  
  
• The European Green Deal project STORIES: "European ecosystem to advance innovation in energy storage devices". (11/2021-10/2025). StoRIESproject will promote a European ecosystem of industry and research organizations to develop innovative concepts and competitive and less costly energy storage technologies. 16 participants, 18 linked third parties, 13 sub-contractors. HVL is involved as a linked third party.
  
  
• H2020 Project DRES2Markets. " Technical, business, and regulatory approaches to enhance the renewable energy capabilities to take part actively in the electricity and ancillary service markets"(08/2020-01/2023). DRES2Markets is aiming at developing a complete and comprehensive framework to facilitate the active participation of distributed generation based on renewable energy – solar PV and wind energy in the electricity market and supply of ancillary services to the power system.15 European partners. Project website
  
  
• ERASME - Jean Monet Center of Excellence on Sustainable Development and Chair on Circular Economy at the University Clermont-Auvergne, France (since April 2019). Cooperation in education & research.
  
  
• Finalized: H2020 Research Project COMETS. "Collective action Models for Energy Transition and Social Innovation" (05/2019-04/2022). 12 European partners, HVL builds a Europe-wide inventory for citizen-led low-carbon energy projects. 

• Diemer, A., (2025) From Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), methodological issues and prospects for implementing circular business models, International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Applied Science 9, 1 (2023).

• Zeiss, J.P., Schwanitz, V.J.,  Wierling, A., Marcroft, T.P., von Beck, C.,  Diemer, A. (2025). Community Energy Initiatives as drivers for degrowth? An empirical investigation of their alignment with five imperatives of degrowth, Journal of Cleaner Production 145612.
  
  
•  Sourgou, H.J., Diemer, A., (2024) National Food Security: Towards a New Sustainable Food System (FS) in Burkina Faso. Modern Economy  15, 599-649   

• Lukas Mueller, Timothy Peter Marcroft, Constantin von Beck, Jan Pedro Zeiss, Valeria Jana Schwanitz, August Wierling, Lars Holstenkamp “First come, first served" or “the more, the merrier"? Organizational dynamics of citizen-led solar initiatives and the presence of photovoltaic installations in Germany Journal of Cleaner Production, 141861 (2024)

• Diemer, A., (2023) From Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to Life Cycle Sustainability Assessment (LCSA), methodological issues and prospects for implementing circular business models, International Journal of Scientific Engineering and Applied Science 9, 1.

• Istil, S.A.; Górecki, J.; Diemer, A. (2023) Study on Certification Criteria of Building Energy and Environmental Performance in the Context of Achieving Climate Neutrality. Sustainability 15, 2770.

• Schwanitz, V. J., Paudler, H. A., & Wierling, A. (2023). The contribution of European citizen-led energy initiatives to sustainable development goals. Sustainable Development, 1–16. 

• Yousefi, M., Wang, J., Fandrem Høivik, Ø., Rajasekharan, J., Wierling, A.H., Farahmand, H., Arghandeh, R.  Short-term inflow forecasting in a dam-regulated river in Southwest Norway using causal variational mode decomposition. Sci Rep 13, 7016 (2023).
  
  

• Schwanitz, V.J., Wierling, A., Arghandeh Paudler, H. et al. Statistical evidence for the contribution of citizen-led initiatives and projects to the energy transition in Europe. Sci Rep 13, 1342 (2023). 

• Wierling, A., Schwanitz, V.J., Zeiss, J.P. et al. A Europe-wide inventory of citizen-led energy action with data from 29 countries and over 10000 initiatives. Sci Data 10, 9 (2023). 

• Wierling A, Zeiss JP, von Beck C, Schwanitz VJ  Business models of energy cooperatives active in the PV sector—A statistical analysis for Germany. PLOS Sustain Transform 1(9): e0000029 (2022).

• Yousefi, M., Cheng, X., Gazzea, M, Wierling, A.H., Rajasekharan, J., Helseth, A., Farahmand,  H., Arghandeh, R. Day-ahead inflow forecasting using causal empirical decomposition Journal of Hydrology 128265 (2022).
  
  

• Schwanitz, V. J., Rudek, T. J., Hubert, W., Wierling, A. The Development of Citizen-Installed Renewable Energy Capacities in Former Eastern Bloc Countries - The Case of Poland Energies 15, 2597 (2022).

• Schwanitz, V. J., Wierling, A., Biresselioglu, M. E., Celino, M., Demir, M. H., Bałazińska, M., Kruczek, M., Paier, M., Suna, D. Current state and call for action to accomplish findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability of low carbon energy data Scientific Reports  12, 5208 (2022). 

• Wierling, V.J. Schwanitz, S. Altinci, M. Balazinska, M.J. Barber, M.E. Biresselioglu, C. Burger-Scheidlin, M. Celino, M.H. Demir, R. Dennis, et al.

  FAIR Metadata Standards for Low Carbon Energy Research—A Review of Practices and How to Advance Energies, 2021, 14, 6692; 

• A.Wierling, J.P. Zeiss, V. Lupi, C. Candelise, A. Sciullo, V.J. Schwanitz, The Contribution of Energy Communities to the Upscaling of Photovoltaics in Germany and Italy, Energies 2021, 14, 2258
  
• C. Wilson et al. Evaluating process-based integrated assessment models of climate change mitigation,  Climatic Change 2021 166, 3. 
  
  
• J.S. Gregg et al.Collective Action and Social Innovation in the Energy Sector: A Mobilization Model Perspective, Energies 2020, 13, 651.

Current assistants:

Sarah Langes (HVL)

Former assistants:

• Raghav Divedi, Phillipa Roots, Abhishesh Nepal, Ranjana Tamang (HVL)
• Negar Safara, Shirin Mohammadi, Mehran Ziaabadi, Constantin von Beck, Simon Dufner, Ingrid Koren and Melake Getabecha (HVL)
• Tadeusz Rudek (Jagellonian University)
• Timothy Marcroft (University of Lyon)