Output indicators

General indicators

The information of the output indicators appears under the labels “General Indicators” and “Detailed graph”. General indicator displays the annual values for the chosen year (2035 or 2050) and for 2011 (red bar). While “Detailed graph” shows the monthly distribution of one of the indicators for 2035 or 2050 (front bars) and it compares it with the 2011 data (back bars). The user can change the indicator shown on the “Detailed graph” by clicking on one of the different “General indicators”.

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Final energy consumption is the amount of energy that is used (in Switzerland and abroad) to cover the Swiss energy demand. In “Detailed graph” the energy consumption is disaggregatted under different labels:

• Transport: Fuels that are used in the transport sector.
• Process heat, Hot water and Space heating: Under this labels there are the fuels that are used for heating industrial processes, producing sanitary hot water and space heating.
• Elec transport: Electricity that is consumed in the transport sector (train and electric vehicles).
• Elec process: Electricity that is used for heating industrial processes through direct electric heating.
• Elec hot water: Electricity that is used for producing sanitary hot water through direct electric heating.
• Elec heat pump: Electricity that is consumed by the heat pump which mainly provide heat for hot water and space heating.
• Elec direct heat: Electricity that is used for space heating by electric direct heating.
• Elec other: Electricity that is consumed for other purposes that have not been previously mentioned such as lighting, cooking, electric engines for industry or services, IT, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, etc.
• Elec export: Electricity that is exported to neighbouring countries due to an overproduction.
• Waste heat: It is the waste heat from thermal power generation. If the electricity is produced from the combustion of a fuel not all this fuel can be converted into electricity. Usually the average efficiency is around 40%. The energy that is not converted is called “waste heat” and it is sent to the ambient.

Its unit is GWh. The GWh is an energy unit. It can be confused with the GW or the KW which are power units.

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The indicator is called CO₂ equivalent emissions because it accounts for the emissions of all the gases that produce the green house effect. The effect of a certain gas on the global warming is compared to the effect of 1 kg of carbon monoxide (CO₂). For example emitting 1 kg of Methane (CH₄) is equivalent to 25 kg of CO₂ in terms of global warming. Summing up, the emissions of any of the Green House Gases (GHG) are accounted as equivalent emissions of CO₂.

An LCA (Life cycle assessment) approach has been used in order to calculate the CO₂ equivalent emissions. Meaning that the emissions produced by vehicles, power plants and boilers are taken into account as well as those related to the construction of power plants or the production and transport of the fuels. Hence, being more generic, LCA allows to asses the emissions associated to all the stages of the product's life (from cradle to grave).

It is under development.

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“Electricity deficit” is the yearly accumulated deficit of electricity. It can be considered as an indicator of the energy security of Switzerland, because the electricity deficit is covered by electricity imports from neighbouring countries, what makes Switzerland dependent on other countries.

The impact assessment method used for calculating the deposited waste is “ecological scarcity 2006 / total deposited waste”. The unit of the obtained value is “UBP”. The output indicator shows millions of UBP (MM UBP). This method takes into account the volume required for storing the generated waste (including the radioactive waste) and the contaminants dumped into the water (river, sea and underground streams).

The computation of the deposited waste is also based on a life cycle analysis.