Overview
DeCoTES strengthens the early decision-making phase for large-scale thermal energy storage (TES) projects in Switzerland. Such projects rarely fail because of technical limitations alone. More often, implementation is hindered by contextual factors such as land requirements, legal and spatial planning provisions, ownership structures, financing, public acceptance and coordination between stakeholders. Building on previous work by CCTES, DeCoTES focuses on defining project objectives and scope, identifying realistic options and developing a lean participation and process concept.
The project combines a multi-stage analysis of real TES projects with targeted stakeholder interviews and a co-design workshop. These activities are used to examine and validate the main decision challenges. The results include a clearly defined problem statement, a context-sensitive decision framework and a conceptual set of assessment criteria. DeCoTES thereby establishes the basis for a subsequent study, which will collect the required data, assess the criteria and compare the available options.
