TUMCREATE researchers recognised for contributions to Singapore's 2040 vision for all vehicles to run on cleaner energy

15.06.2022

 

The SITEM project team including TUMCREATE researchers has received the prestigious Borderless Silver Award 2022 in the annual Firefly Awards by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore (MTI). The annual Firefly Awards celebrate the best of ideas as well as recognise teams and individuals within the MTI Family who have exemplified strengths in the respective Award categories. The TUMCREATE researchers Dr Tobias Massier, Dr David Eckhoff, Dr Daniel Zehe, Marc Gallet, Kuo Yu-Jeng, Xiao Jiajian, and Dr Arif Ahmed were honoured when their efforts were recognised by the Ministry of Trade and Industry, Singapore (MTI). The team would also like to thank fellow researchers and previous team members Dr Sebastian Troitzsch, Andrej Trpovski, and Nagacharan Teja Tangirala for their efforts and achievements, contributing to the success of the research project.

From left: Dr Tobias Massier, Marc Gallet, Kuo Yu-Jeng, Xiao Jiajian, Dr Daniel Zehe, Dr David Eckhoff

 

The SITEM Project Team: A*STAR IHPC & TUMCREATE’s multidisciplinary researchers

 

Singapore’s 2040 vision to phase out internal combustion engine vehicles and have all vehicles run on cleaner energy to contribute towards Singapore’s decarbonisation commitments, requires a large-scale, multi-agency effort to provide charging infrastructure, electrify public vehicles, and upgrade the electrical grid to accommodate the new demand.

The Singapore Integrated Transport and Energy Model (SITEM) describes a research project that supports Singapore’s planning for the transition to electric vehicles (EVs) nationwide. Commissioned by the Prime Minister's Public Sector Science and Technology Policy and Plans Office (S&TPPO) and in collaboration with all relevant agencies, researchers from A*STAR and TUMCREATE set out to create the first high-fidelity, island-wide simulation of EV transport in Singapore. It is key project with public value for Singapore that TUMCREATE has been working on together with A*STAR’s Institute of High Performance Computing.

SITEM is used to conduct a comprehensive analysis of projected electric vehicle (EV) charging patterns and energy demand, while integrating multiple aspects of mobility and energy modelling, including the movements of individual vehicles, drivers’ decisions about where and when to charge, and the interaction of EV charging demand with electricity grid capacity.

The SITEM project builds on two primary simulation technologies developed by TUMCREATE:

• City Mobility Simulator (CityMoS) utilises high-performance computing techniques to enable high-detail transport simulation of the entire island of Singapore, while maintaining short turnaround times.
• Multi Energy System Modelling & Optimisation (MESMO) is an advanced software framework that combines simulation of electrical grids and optimisation techniques to mitigate the grid impact of distributed energy resources (such as photovoltaics) and new types of loads (such as EV charging).

Robust modelling and simulation have potential to reap significant cost avoidance, as projects in the infrastructure and energy space are typically costly and hard to re-work once in the implementation stage. To model such a large-scale and multi-layered system at high resolution, the researchers are employing advanced capabilities including large scale complex systems modelling and optimisation, high performance and distributed computing, advanced data analytics and empirically grounded agent-based modelling of human behaviour.

Through advanced scenario modelling and simulation, SITEM delivers insights on how Singapore can optimise EV charging stations’ placement to address drivers’ charging needs and to efficiently allocate energy demand and upgrades across the power grid. SITEM’s has enabled regulatory agencies to explore and evaluate varied pathways to vehicle electrification.

 

Further information on SITEM