Haute-Sorne: Strategic Energy Concept for Municipal Decarbonization

Geoimpact AG is a Swiss territorial energy planning specialist providing comprehensive solutions from analysis through implementation across Bern, Zürich, and Basel regions.

The commune of Haute-Sorne faced the complex challenge of decarbonizing its heating system across a diverse building portfolio. With 103 GWh of annual energy demand distributed across nearly one million square meters of heated space, the municipality needed a data-driven approach to:

• Identify optimal district heating network locations across diverse building typologies
• Quantify potential CO₂ emission reductions
• Evaluate economic feasibility of different heating technologies and scenarios
• Prioritize investments for maximum CO₂ reduction impact

Traditional energy planning approaches lacked the granular analysis needed to optimize network topology and technology selection at territorial scale.

Source: https://www.haute-sorne.ch/fr/Visiter/Haute-sorne-en-image/Soulce.html ​

Geoimpact deployed TESSA clustering technology to conduct comprehensive geospatial energy analysis of Haute-Sorne’s building stock. The methodology combined:

Thanks to TESSA algorithms, Geoimpact identified 5 optimal district heating zones by analyzing building density, energy demand patterns, and infrastructure constraints, representing 80% of municipal emissions.

Engineered ground source heat pump baseload (2 MW) with wood pellet peak coverage (150 kW) for the priority cluster, ensuring 100% renewable energy integration.

Designed 4.74 km pipeline system connecting 184 buildings in the highest-impact zone, utilizing meshed thermal distribution with multiple injection points.

Comprehensive investment cost analysis and levelized energy cost calculations provided clear financial projections for municipal decision-making.

Detailed CO₂ emission modeling demonstrated the environmental benefits of transitioning from individual heating systems to optimized district networks.

The solution demonstrated that targeted district heating networks could achieve equivalent emission reductions to individual building renovations without requiring comprehensive building envelope improvements, offering a more feasible path to 2050 climate targets for Swiss municipalities.