Artelys Crystal City

As cities consume 70% of world energy, the optimization of urban energy investments is a key challenge for reducing polluting emissions.

Artelys Crystal City is a decision-support software to help local authorities to define sustainable, reliable and cost-effective urban energy strategies. Artelys Crystal City is currently under experimentation with French (Marne la Vallée, 70 000 inhabitants) and Italian local authorities (Cesena, 100 000 inhabitants and Bologna 400 000 inhabitants).

A decision-support application

Through detailed energy chain simulations, Artelys Crystal City allows to assess the environmental and financial impacts of various long-term (5 to 30 years) energy plan (local ressources valuation, heat network, demand side management, smart grid...) and to reduce exposition to fuel price uncertainties.

A development-support application to define local energy strategy

French local authorities with over 50 000 inhabitants must have a energy strategy for the end of 2012, with a detailed action plan to improve the energy efficiency, boost renewable energy production and reduce greenhouse emission. Artelys Crystal City platform help to define cost-effective action plans to achieve this objective.

A communication application

Artelys Crystal City centralizes and synthesizes all the energy data, in order to facilitate consultations between actors. The ergonomic interface help local authorities to promote their decisions towards citizens.

Consumed/produced energy for each type of consumers/producers

Features

Two levels of representation

• Annual consumption / production for quick parameter setting
• Detailed consumption / production representation (1 hour time step) for results validation

Comprehensive modelling of the energy chain

Detailed modelling of the energy demand
… hourly time step and by type of consumer

• Database of consumption by usage (space heating, water heating, lighting…) and by consumers type (apartment built before 1975, offices, hotels...)
• Calibration of these profiles for detailed simulation
•  Factors influencing consumption (temperature, bank holidays)
• Energy mix definition (gas versus electricity heat…) and energy supply contracts

Consumption curve (annually per hour) residential heat usage

Modelling of long-term uncertainties on price and demand

… based on RTE and AIE main scenarios

• On energy prices (5 to 30 years)
• On demand evolution by usage and type of consumers

Long term electric demand scenarios for residential consumers (sources : RTE)

Detailed modelling of the energy portfolios and energy strategies
… based on a wide energy assets library

• Local energy production and storage system
- Decentralized production based on renewable energy (solar, wind, biomasse…)
- Waste-to-energy valuation
- Cogeneration and collective heat
- Production scenarios for intermittent energies (wind turbines, solar units)

• Electrical, gas, heat networks

• Transportation
- Public transport 
- Electrical vehicles

• Demand side management
- Isolation campaign
- Energy efficiency
- Smart grids

Studied energy strategy example : geothermal and wood boiler (south), waste valuation and cogeneration (west)

Economical and environmental impacts evolution

Simulation of energy portfolio management

• Simulation of optimized production portfolio management
• Simulation of optimized consumption management 
• Optimization of stocks management

Solar production per house (red) versus sanitary hot-water consumption (blue)

Costs estimation

• Investment costs (CAPEX)
• Operationnal costs (maintenance, production site management…)
• Combustible costs
• Energy purchasing costs on national network

Greenhouse emissions

• Direct emissions 
• Indirect emissions

Compared risk analysis

The assessment of strategies on various scenarios allows to efficiently manage economical and environmental risks, and to compare results such as:

• Environmental risks and health impacts 
• Network joint management risks 
• Financial deficit risks
• Financial exposition to fuel price uncertainties

An ergonomic interface and useful fonctionnalities

• Interface based on geographical information system which allows to have a global vision on the system modeled
• Possibility to manage several studies in the same time. Models and results export, import 
• User-friendly management of different scenarios in a same case study 
• Application to ease the scenarios generation (based on formulas or historical data)
• Results tracking
• Analysis of comodities prices variation sensibilityand risks analysis 
• Comparison of energetic scenarios through indicatos and results

The user can add an energy asset with a single click (here a biogas plant) or implant its own constraints.

Benefits for local authorities

Decision-support application

• Optimize mid-term and short-term energy investments
• Optimize local energy strategy to cost-effectively integrate green energy and reduce CO2 emissions
• Evaluate energy strategies' economical and environmental impacts
• Define robust energy schemes to face fuel price uncertainties

Communication application

• Ease skills improvement for local authorities
• Ease consultations between actors through a ergonomic application
• Promote local authority decisions towards citizens

Videos

This section contains no video.