Open access decision support for sustainable buildings and neighborhoods: The nano energy system simulator NESSI

Abstract

The urgency of climate change mitigation, rising energy prices and geopolitical crises make a quick and efficient energy transition in the building sector imperative. Building owners, housing associations, and local governments need support in the complex task to build sustainable energy systems. Motivated by the calls for more solution-oriented, practice-focused research regarding climate change and guided by design science research principles, we address this need and design, develop, and evaluate the web-based decision support system NESSI. NESSI is an open-access energy system simulator with an intuitive user flow to facilitate multi-energy planning for buildings and neighborhoods. It calculates the technical, environmental, and economic effects of 14 energy-producing, consuming, and storing components of the electric and thermal infrastructure, considers time-dependent effects, and accounts for geographic as well as sectoral circumstances. Its applicability is demonstrated with the case of a single-family home in Hannover, Germany, and evaluated through twelve expert interviews.