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To transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewables - which are intermittent by nature - we'll need to rework our entire system of power storage, transmission and distribution. Yet experts haven't yet found the right energy mix or power storage system, or how to balance supply and demand effectively.

Solar energy, which is both abundant and free, is poised to become the world's leading power source by 2050.

From the desert to Swiss industry: As part of the new Mining the Atmosphere initiative, researchers are pursuing the goal of harvesting renewable energy in the Earth's sun belt, converting it several times and transporting it over long distances to where it is needed.

Researchers from the Automatic Control Laboratory and the electricity supplier AEW Energie AG have won the 2024 Watt d'Or award in the Energy Technologies category.

Climate neutrality and nuclear phase-out: Switzerland's ambitious green electricity targets are realistic if the electricity supply is profoundly and rapidly transformed, as a study by the SWEET EDGE consortium shows.

Gabriela Hug - an expert in power transmission networks - argues that securing an affordable energy supply from renewable sources is not a utopian ideal for Switzerland, but rather a practical and feasible necessity.

Whether rooftop solar panels are worth the cost is largely dependent in Switzer-land on local compensation rates for solar power and on electricity prices in gen-eral - these are the findings of a study by researchers at ETH Zurich and the University of Bern.

In 1886, the first hydropower plant went into operation in Littau, Lucerne, to supply the Swiss AC grid.

With a new project, Energy Future 2050, the Association of Swiss Electricity Companies VSE together with Empa shows based on various scenarios what Switzerland's energy supply could look like by 2050.

Scientists at the Swiss Plasma Center at EPFL, in collaboration with Beyond Gravity and with the support of the ESA, have developed a slip ring assembly that can more than triple the operational voltage of new-generation, high-voltage satellites.

Today EPFL inaugurated its new heating plant, which has the capacity to heat and cool the Lausanne campus solely by drawing water from Lake Geneva and recovering excess heat from a connected data center.

Short-wave infrared light (SWIR) is useful for many things: It helps sort out damaged fruit and inspecting silicon chips, and it enables night vision devices with sharp images.

The successful deployment of solar power will depend on many factors, including how well grid operators are able to balance supply and demand in order to incorporate renewable energy into their low-voltage grids.

Organic waste - whether from households, agriculture or agroforestry - can be used as energy resource, but is often underexploited.

Magic Cube is a new teaching tool developed by ETH Zurich, ABB and mint & pepper. It uses a playful approach to teach junior high and high school students the basics of electrical engineering and awaken their interest in the field.

Physicists at ETH Zurich have demonstrated a five-metre-long microwave quantum link, the longest of its kind date. It can be used both for future quantum computer networks and for experiments in basic quantum physics research. Collaboration is everything - also in the quantum world. To build powerful quantum computers in the future, it will be necessary to connect several smaller computers to form a kind of cluster or local network (LAN).

Romain Fleury, a tenure-track assistant professor who heads the Laboratory of Wave Engineering, has been named best teacher in electrical and electronic engineering.

Whether mobile phone or automatic toilets - electronic devices are becoming increasingly complex. And who hasn't heard stories of devices that fail precisely after the warranty has expired?

To harvest wind energy, you don't necessarily need rotors on steel masts - light kites on thin ropes can do the same. The Empa spin-off TwingTec has been researching this technology for some time now. Last autumn, it was possible for the first time to start, generate electrical energy while flying and then land again, all in the specified level of automation.

Social opposition to new high-voltage lines is delaying modernisation of the power grid. Two projects of the National Research Programmes "Energy Turnaround" and "Managing Energy Consumption" have determined the optimum design of hybrid overhead lines needed to increase the capacity of the power transmission grid and, at the same time, win popular acceptance for the new technology.

For the first time, physicists have successfully imaged spiral magnetic ordering in a multiferroic material. These materials are considered highly promising candidates for future data storage media. The researchers were able to prove their findings using unique quantum sensors that were developed at Basel University and that can analyze electromagnetic fields on the nanometer scale.

Scientists have developed a new method of characterizing grapheneâ?'s properties without applying disruptive electrical contacts, allowing them to investigate both the resistance and quantum capacitance of graphene and other two-dimensional materials. Researchers from the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the University of Baselâ''s Department of Physics reported their findings in the journal Physical Review Applied.

On behalf of CERN, researchers at ETH Zurich have developed a high-tech device for the production of extremely precise, high voltage pulses that could be used in the next generation of particle accelerators.

Researchers of the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have made detailed 3-D images of a commercially available computer chip. This marks the first time a non-destructive method has visualized the paths of a chip's internal wiring (just 45 nanometres — 45 millionths of a millimetre — wide) and its 34-nanometre-high transistors clearly without distortions or deformations.

EPFL researchers are supporting this Himalayan country's efforts to expand its hydropower capacity. At a time when dams in Switzerland are up for sale, another small mountainous country intent on preserving its natural environment is looking to further tap into its hydroelectric potential.

Electronic components have become faster and faster over the years, thus making powerful computers and other technologies possible. Researchers at ETH Zurich have now investigated how fast electrons can ultimately be controlled with electric fields. Their insights are of importance for the petahertz electronics of the future.

25. The electric pedal cars with two seats known as Twikes will soon be a snap to drive thanks to a more efficient pedaling system and a compact onboard computer.

15. EPFL scientists are developing a new concept of a smart building that adjusts to your lifestyle, by allowing you to control your preferences.

Researchers of the University of Basel and Empa have gotten a step closer to engineering artificial muscles: they have developed a method to generate nanometer-thin silicone films.

Researchers from Empa and the University of Basel have developed a new method of electrospraying which enables artificial muscles to be fabricated from nanometer-thin silicone layers.

Microwave field imaging is becoming increasingly important, as microwaves play an essential role in modern technology and can also be used in medical diagnostics. Researchers from the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the Department of Physics at the University of Basel have now independently developed two new methods for imaging microwave fields.

Two thirds of humankind do not have access to radiography, essential to the practice of modern medicine.

For the first time ever, an EPFL laboratory has carried out a complete energy analysis of a straw house, from planting the grass to the destruction of the materials.

A high-performance monitoring system displays fluctuations in real-time in the power distribution grid of an entire section of the EPFL campus. This installation represents an important step towards the realistic deployment of the smart grids concept for the massive integration of renewables. Imagine for a moment the idea of powering a neighborhood, a city or even an entire country with solar or wind energy alone.

EPFL scientists take a significant step in our understanding of superconductivity by studying the strange quantum events in a unique superconducting material. Cuprates are materials with great promise for achieving superconductivity at higher temperatures (-120 o C). This could mean low-cost electricity without energy loss.

Media Releases Matter and Material Materials Research SwissFEL A terahertz laser developed at the Paul Scherrer Institute makes it possible to control a material's magnetisation at a timescale of picoseconds (0.000 000 000 001 seconds).

Media Releases Matter and Material Materials Research Researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) have made thin, crystalline layers of the material LuMnO 3 that are both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic.

The properties of basic electronic components can be simulated with ultracold atoms that flow through structures made of laser light. This is the result of work in which scientists at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, use a new generation of quantum experiments to explore the behaviour of electronic currents in a regime where predictions are often difficult to make.

Silicon nanowires under extreme tensile strain are a possible basis for more-efficient transistors Stretching a layer of silicon can build up internal mechanical strain which can considerably improve its electronic properties. With strained silicon, one can, for example, build faster and less power-consuming microprocessors.

EPFL research in atomic scale magnetism could play a role in the development of new materials that could permit lossless electricity transmission. Might it one day be possible to transmit electricity from an offshore wind turbine to land-based users without any loss of current? Materials known as "high temperature" superconductors (even though they must be maintained at -140°C!), which can conduct electricity without any losses, were supposed to make this dream a reality.