arXiv subjects

Jann Michael Weinand

Publications and source records attributed to Jann Michael Weinand.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Automated Extraction of Techno-Economic Data from 76,000 Energy System Studies

Energy system models guide societally important decisions, but their credibility rests on quantitative assumptions that are difficult to source and audit. Meta-analyses can improve transparency and modeling practices, but the rapid growth of publications makes manual information extraction increasingly impractical. Consequently, databases are updated infrequently and efforts are often duplicated across research groups. Here, we demonstrate the highly accurate automated extraction of quantitative information from 76,000 energy system studies published since 2010. We compile 3.2 million structured quantitative data points together with 20 million associated metadata entries, spanning a broad spectrum of technologies, methodological approaches and system characteristics. Beyond providing input data for models, the resulting FAIR database make the energy systems literature itself analysable. We show where academic assumptions diverge from empirical observed data, and how research priorities vary at scale across technologies, regions and time. To facilitate broad use within the community, the database is provided through an interactive dashboard, enabling users to filter, analyse and download data according to their specific research needs.

cs.CL↗

arXiv2025

Automated Building Heritage Assessment Using Street-Level Imagery

Registration of heritage values in buildings is important to safeguard heritage values that can be lost in renovation and energy efficiency projects. However, registering heritage values is a cumbersome process. Novel artificial intelligence tools may improve efficiency in identifying heritage values in buildings compared to costly and time-consuming traditional inventories. In this study, OpenAI's large language model GPT was used to detect various aspects of cultural heritage value in facade images. Using GPT derived data and building register data, machine learning models were trained to classify multi-family and non-residential buildings in Stockholm, Sweden. Validation against a heritage expert-created inventory shows a macro F1-score of 0.71 using a combination of register data and features retrieved from GPT, and a score of 0.60 using only GPT-derived data. The methods presented can contribute to higher-quality datasets and support decision making.

cs.CV↗

arXiv2024

High-Resolution Rooftop-PV Potential Assessment for a Resilient Energy System in Ukraine

Rooftop photovoltaic (RTPV) systems are essential for building a decarbonized and, due to its decentralized structure, more resilient energy system, and are particularly important for Ukraine, where recent conflicts have damaged more than half of its electricity and heat supply capacity. Favorable solar irradiation conditions make Ukraine a strong candidate for large-scale PV deployment, but effective policy requires detailed data on spatial and temporal generation potential. This study fills the data gap by using open-source satellite building footprint data corrected with high-resolution data from eastern Germany. This approach allowed accurate estimates of rooftop area and PV capacity and generation across Ukraine, with simulations revealing a capacity potential of 238.8 GW and a generation potential of 290 TWh/a excluding north-facing. The majority of this potential is located in oblasts (provinces) across the country with large cities such as Donetsk, Dnipro or Kyiv and surroundings. These results, validated against previous studies and available as open data, confirm Ukraine's significant potential for RTPV, supporting both energy resilience and climate goals.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2024

An efficient solver for large-scale onshore wind farm siting including cable routing

Existing planning approaches for onshore wind farm siting and grid integration often do not meet minimum cost solutions or social and environmental considerations. In this paper, we develop an exact approach for the integrated layout and cable routing problem of onshore wind farm planning using the Quota Steiner tree problem. Applying a novel transformation on a known directed cut formulation, reduction techniques, and heuristics, we design an exact solver that makes large problem instances solvable and outperforms generic MIP solvers. In selected regions of Germany, the trade-offs between minimizing costs and landscape impact of onshore wind farm siting are investigated. Although our case studies show large trade-offs between the objective criteria of cost and landscape impact, small burdens on one criterion can significantly improve the other criteria. In addition, we demonstrate that contrary to many approaches for exclusive turbine siting, grid integration must be simultaneously optimized to avoid excessive costs or landscape impacts in the course of a wind farm project. Our novel problem formulation and the developed solver can assist planners in decision-making and help optimize wind farms in large regions in the future.

math.OC↗

arXiv2023

Low-carbon Lithium Extraction Makes Deep Geothermal Plants Cost-competitive in Energy Systems

Lithium is a critical material for the energy transition, but conventional procurement methods have significant environmental impacts. In this study, we utilize regional energy system optimizations to investigate the techno-economic potential of the low-carbon alternative of direct lithium extraction in deep geothermal plants. We show that geothermal plants will become cost-competitive in conjunction with lithium extraction, even under unfavorable conditions and partially displace photovoltaics, wind power, and storage from energy systems. Our analysis indicates that if 10% of municipalities in the Upper Rhine Graben area in Germany constructed deep geothermal plants, they could provide enough lithium to produce about 1.2 million electric vehicle battery packs per year, equivalent to 70% of today`s annual electric vehicle registrations in the European Union. This approach could offer significant environmental benefits and has high potential for mass application also in other countries, such as the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Italy, highlighting the importance of further research and development of this technology.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2023

Global LCOEs of decentralized off-grid renewable energy systems

Recent global events emphasize the importance of a reliable energy supply. One way to increase energy supply security is through decentralized off-grid renewable energy systems, for which a growing number of case studies are researched. This review gives a global overview of the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for these autonomous energy systems, which range from 0.03 \$_{2021}/kWh to over 1.00 \$_{2021}/kWh worldwide. The average LCOEs for 100% renewable energy systems have decreased by 9% annually between 2016 and 2021 from 0.54 \$_{2021}/kWh to 0.29 \$_{2021}/kWh, presumably due to cost reductions in renewable energy and storage technologies. Furthermore, we identify and discuss seven key reasons why LCOEs are frequently overestimated or underestimated in literature, and how this can be prevented in the future. Our overview can be employed to verify findings on off-grid systems, to assess where these systems might be deployed and how costs evolve.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2022

Reviewing local and integrated energy system models: insights into flexibility and robustness challenges

The electrification of heating, cooling, and transportation to reach decarbonization targets calls for a rapid expansion of renewable technologies. Due to their decentral and intermittent nature, these technologies require robust planning that considers non-technical constraints and flexibility options to be integrated effectively. Energy system models (ESMs) are frequently used to support decision-makers in this planning process. In this study, 116 case studies of local, integrated ESMs are systematically reviewed to identify best-practice approaches to model flexibility and to address non-technical constraints. Within the sample, storage systems and sector coupling are the most common types of flexibility. Sector coupling with the transportation sector, specifically with electric vehicles that could be used for smart charging or vehicle-to-grid operation, is rarely considered. Social aspects are generally either completely neglected or modeled exogenously. Lacking actor heterogeneity, which can lead to unstable results in optimization models, can be addressed through building-level information. A strong emphasis on cost is found and while emissions are also frequently reported, additional metrics such as imports or the share of renewable generation are nearly absent. To guide future modeling, the paper concludes with a roadmap highlighting flexibility and robustness options that either represent low-hanging fruit or have a large impact on results.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2021

Exploring the trilemma of cost-efficient, equitable and publicly acceptable onshore wind expansion planning

Onshore wind development has historically focused on cost-efficiency, which may lead to inequitable turbine distributions and public resistance due to landscape impacts. Using a multi-criteria planning approach, we show how onshore wind capacity targets can be achieved by 2050 in a cost-efficient, equitable and publicly acceptable way. For the case study of Germany, we build on the existing turbine stock and use open data on technically feasible turbine locations and scenicness of landscapes to plan the optimal expansion. The analysis shows that while the trade-off between cost-efficiency and public acceptance is rather weak with about 15% higher costs or scenicness, an equitable distribution has a large impact on these criteria. Although the onshore wind capacity per inhabitant could be distributed about 220% more equitably through the expansion, equity would severely limit planning flexibility by 2050. Our analysis assists stakeholders in resolving the onshore wind expansion trilemma.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2021

An expert survey to assess the current status and future challenges of energy system analysis

Decision support systems like computer-aided energy system analysis (ESA) are considered one of the main pillars for developing sustainable and reliable energy transformation strategies. Although today's diverse tools can already support decision-makers in a variety of research questions, further developments are still necessary. Intending to identify opportunities and challenges in the field, we classify modelling capabilities (32), methodologies (15) implementation issues (15) and management issues (7) from an extensive literature review. Based on a quantitative expert survey of energy system modellers (N=61) mainly working with simulation and optimisation models, the status of development and the complexity of realisation of those modelling topics are assessed. While the rated items are considered to be more complex than actually represented, no significant outliers are determinable, showing that there is no consensus about particular aspects of ESA that are lacking development. Nevertheless, a classification of the items in terms of a specially defined modelling strategy matrix identifies capabilities like land-use planning patterns, equity and distributional effects and endogenous technological learning as "low hanging fruits" for enhancement, as well as a large number of complex topics that are already well implemented. The remaining "tough nuts" regarding modelling capabilities include non-energy sector and social behaviour interaction effects. In general, the optimisation and simulation models differ in their respective strengths, justifying the existence of both. While methods were generally rated as quite well developed, combinatorial optimisation approaches, as well as machine learning, are identified as important research methods to be developed further for ESA.

physics.soc-ph↗

arXiv2021

Reviewing methods and assumptions for high-resolution large-scale onshore wind energy potential assessments

The rapid uptake of renewable energy technologies in recent decades has increased the demand of energy researchers, policymakers and energy planners for reliable data on the spatial distribution of their costs and potentials. For onshore wind energy this has resulted in an active research field devoted to analysing these resources for regions, countries or globally. A particular thread of this research attempts to go beyond purely technical or spatial restrictions and determine the realistic, feasible or actual potential for wind energy. Motivated by these developments, this paper reviews methods and assumptions for analysing geographical, technical, economic and, finally, feasible onshore wind potentials. We address each of these potentials in turn, including aspects related to land eligibility criteria, energy meteorology, and technical developments relating to wind turbine characteristics such as power density, specific rotor power and spacing aspects. Economic aspects of potential assessments are central to future deployment and are discussed on a turbine and system level covering levelized costs depending on locations, and the system integration costs which are often overlooked in such analyses. Non-technical approaches include scenicness assessments of the landscape, expert and stakeholder workshops, willingness to pay / accept elicitations and socioeconomic cost-benefit studies. For each of these different potential estimations, the state of the art is critically discussed, with an attempt to derive best practice recommendations and highlight avenues for future research.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2021

Reviewing two decades of energy system analysis with bibliometrics

The field of Energy System Analysis (ESA) has experienced exponential growth in the number of publications since at least the year 2000. This paper presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis on ESA by employing different algorithms in Matlab and R. The focus of results is on quantitative indicators relating to number and type of publication outputs, collaboration links between institutions, authors and countries, and dynamic trends within the field. The five and twelve most productive countries have 50% and 80% of ESA publications respectively. The dominant institutions are even more concentrated within a small number of countries. A significant concentration of published papers within countries and institutions was also confirmed by analysing collaboration networks. These show dominant collaboration within the same university or at least the same country. There is also is a strong link among the most successful journals, authors and institutions. The Energy journal has had the most publications in the field, and its editor-in-chief Lund H is the author with most of the publications in the field, as well as the author with most of the highly cited publications in the field. In terms of the dynamics within the field in the past decade, recent years have seen a higher impact of topics related to flexibility and hybrid/integrated energy systems alongside a decline in individual technologies. This paper provides a holistic overview of two decades' research output and enables interested readers to obtain a comprehensive overview of the key trends in this active field.

cs.DL↗

arXiv2020

Research trends in combinatorial optimisation

Real-world problems are becoming highly complex and, therefore, have to be solved with combinatorial optimisation (CO) techniques. Motivated by the strong increase of publications on CO, 8,393 articles from this research field are subjected to a bibliometric analysis. The corpus of literature is examined using mathematical methods and a novel algorithm for keyword analysis. In addition to the most relevant countries, organisations and authors as well as their collaborations, the most relevant CO problems, solution methods and application areas are presented. Publications on CO focus mainly on the development or enhancement of metaheuristics like genetic algorithms. The increasingly problem-oriented studies deal particularly with real-world applications within the energy sector, production sector or data management, which are of increasing relevance due to various global developments. The demonstration of global research trends in CO can support researchers in identifying the relevant issues regarding this expanding and transforming research area.

econ.GN↗

arXiv2020

Reviewing energy system modelling of decentralized energy autonomy

Research attention on decentralized autonomous energy systems has increased exponentially in the past three decades, as demonstrated by the absolute number of publications and the share of these studies in the corpus of energy system modelling literature. This paper shows the status quo and future modelling needs for research on local autonomous energy systems. A total of 359 studies are roughly investigated, of which a subset of 123 in detail. The studies are assessed with respect to the characteristics of their methodology and applications, in order to derive common trends and insights. Most case studies apply to middle-income countries and only focus on the supply of electricity in the residential sector. Furthermore, many of the studies are comparable regarding objectives and applied methods. Local energy autonomy is associated with high costs, leading to levelized costs of electricity of 0.41 $/kWh on average. By analysing the studies, many improvements for future studies could be identified: the studies lack an analysis of the impact of autonomous energy systems on surrounding energy systems. In addition, the robust design of autonomous energy systems requires higher time resolutions and extreme conditions. Future research should also develop methodologies to consider local stakeholders and their preferences for energy systems.

econ.GN↗