Data-driven Energy System Analysis

• Since 2026, we are installing traffic flow counters across Sogn and the wider Vestlandet region to complement data from the National Road Authority with more detailed data from smaller rural roads. We are curious about sinks and sources of local traffic flows. Live traffic data is available through Telraam Mobility Vestlandet. The project aims to improve understanding of how people travel in rural areas and to support the development of better public transport systems in Western Norway. Currently: establishment and validation phase. Data collection for analysis starts from July 2026.
  
  
• Living Lab Sogndal (since 2026) and part of the ARTEMIS project. The lab is located in the local mobility hub Skysstasjon. It serves as a platform for discussions on regional development. In collaboration with students from the Climate Change Management master’s programme, we organized the rural mobility exhibition “The Way Forward.”
  
  
• The oldest ski vs. a modern ski: which has the smaller footprint? In 2026, together with students from our Climate Change Management master's programme, we calculated the carbon footprint of the oldest ski ever found in Norway. It was discovered in Reinheimen National Park in 2021. We compared it to a ski you could buy today. The results reveal how much materials, production, and our throwaway culture really cost the planet. 
  
  
• The Erwin-Knipping Project (2024-2026). Digitalization project with the German Society for Natural and Ethnological Sciences of East Asia (OAG Tokyo). Analyzes and digitizes 19th-century handwritten weather records.
  
  
• ARTEMIS (2024–2029) – European Universities initiative, co-financed by ERASMUS+; our group contributes to the joint research agenda.
  
  
• WHITECYCLE (2022–2027) – Horizon Europe project on recycling complex PET waste (including textiles from tires); our group leads data management and sustainability assessments. The project is led by Michelin.

Past projects

• WWF - City-Level Carbon Footprint Validation (2022–2023)
  
  
• H2020 Project EERAdata."Towards a FAIR and open data ecosystem in the low carbon energy research community"(03/2020-02/2023).
  
  
• The European Green Deal project STORIES: "European ecosystem to advance innovation in energy storage devices". (11/2021-10/2025). 
  
  
• 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). 
  
  
• 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. 
  
  
• H2020 Research Project COMETS. "Collective action Models for Energy Transition and Social Innovation" (05/2019-04/2022). 

• Wierling, A., & Schwanitz, V. J. (2026). Feature: Historical Weather Data Revisited.The Erwin Knipping Project of the German Society for Natural and Ethnological Studies of East Asia. Zenodo.
  
  
• Timothy Marcroft, Constantin von Beck, Valeria Jana Schwanitz, August Wierling, Arnaud Diemer, Key issues and lessons for local energy co-creation: an AI-assisted systematic literature review investigating opportunity spaces, Oxford Open Energy, Volume 5, 2026, oiag004, 
  
  
• 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
  
  
• 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:

• Sebastian Johannes Schmidt, Ask Furnes Sandvik

Former assistants:

• Sarah Langes, 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)