CADATA: data to promote district heating
Maël Perret's dream is to see district heating installed in every town and community in Switzerland. His CADATA project is as ingenious as it is simple, and is already of interest to several communes in the canton of Vaud.
What if the Swiss switched to district heating? Maël Perret, the young CEO of start-up E-nno, is convinced that district heating is a solution for the future, and one of the most efficient ways of moving away from fossil fuels. Its CO2 footprint is significantly lower than that of gas or oil-fired boilers. Its development is a key element of the 2050 energy strategy. Unfortunately, this solution is not always available and accessible at the time of boiler renewal. The time lag between the homeowner's immediate need and the time required for construction is an obstacle to connection. Because of a lack of foresight, it is sometimes not possible to propose a renewable solution to the owner.
The system that the team is currently putting in place, via the CADATA project, is ingenious: it consists of providing municipalities with a platform for territorial energy planning. In other words, a map showing how each home and building in the community is heated. Owners, managers, service providers and janitors are called upon to collaborate. With just a few clicks, they can inform the municipality and send a photo of their boiler's nameplate and information about their future goals via a mobile app.
Once this map has been drawn up, we'll begin the process of convincing owners and operators of our products.
District heating is a solution that is not only sustainable, but also economical in the long term, yet at present only a small percentage of Swiss homes are heated by this "heat network", which can be supplied by a household waste incineration plant, a combined heat and power plant or an industrial site with waste heat to recover.
The CADATA project was launched as part of the Red Lab program, which aims to promote innovative projects in the energy and mobility sector. The application is currently under development, with the aim of being tested by the end of the year.
Maël Perret, 35, from the canton of Vaud, is a pure product of the HES-SO engineering school in Geneva. His project won over the innovation committee of the NTN Innovation Booster Living Labs for Decarbonisation and the DGE-DIREN, the department responsible for implementing Vaud's energy policy, both of which helped finance the idea.
The project in 2 figures
- 6 months: the time it took to complete this project
- CHF 25,000: the amount invested in this development
Digital nuggets in French-speaking Switzerland
CADATA is the Nugget of the Month for May 2022, selected by the Alp ICT, BioAlps, CleantechAlps and Micronarc platforms, which each year, thanks to their fieldwork, discover remarkable innovation projects that are not yet widely publicized. Most of the time, these are projects within companies that use digital technologies to meet their internal needs or to develop their business.
The term "nugget" was chosen in reference to the gold nuggets that form in geothermal springs, through cracks in hard rock, and therefore in hard-to-reach places. A nugget is not necessarily known; it has value, but it can remain hidden if no one is looking for it.
That's why the platforms have decided to reveal these hidden nuggets, starting in 2022, through a series of monthly portraits. It's a great way to showcase the dynamism of our regional companies, inspire the ecosystem to innovate, and make technologies more accessible. Each month, we share the portrait of a new nugget: how did the project come about? by what means? what were the challenges? what are the returns on investment?
