About MEST

Traditionally, for many years, power generation 
simply followed load demand. Storage units were used mainly for techno-economic optimisation, allowing
 large base-load power plants such as nuclear or coal-fired power plants to operate at a constant and full-
load operation point despite the fluctuating pattern of load demand. The remaining variations between scheduled generation and actual real-time load demand, caused by stochastic effects on both generation- and demand-side, were balanced via reserve capacities.

In recent years, this is changing due to a number of reasons:

1. The widespread deployment of variable Renewable Energy Sources (RES) (solar, wind, thermal, biomass) in many countries has led to a significant share of highly fluctuating power generation that is not easily controllable.
2. The growing energy market activity on the increasingly integrated national and trans-national energy markets has led to more frequent changes in the operating set-point schedules of power plants.
3. The emergence of smart grids as a driver for change in power system operation at all grid levels.

Collectively, these developments constitute a major paradigm shift in the management of energy generation and load portfolios: in the future load demand will increasingly have to follow the fluctuating power generation of RES.

As this transition will require drastic changes in the energy sector, it is critical to understand, evaluate and quantify the micro- and macro-economic implications 
of such a transition. Effective and robust energy policies in today’s market economies have to recognise the role 
of economic incentives in determining the energy supply and demand decisions of firms and households in various sectors of the economy, as well as in international markets.

Future market environments should be designed to ensure adequate investment incentives for electricity generation and transmission capacity and to guarantee sufficient temporal and spatial flexibility of power generation in light of fluctuating renewable energy sources. The dynamic aspect of the energy transition further entails considering the macroeconomic drivers and mechanisms for economic growth and their interrelationship with specific aspects of the energy sector such as, for example, technological innovations, resource costs, capital intensity and market structures.

In addition to these regional challenges, the supply of energy is becoming increasingly dependent on global interdependencies. For instance, the discovery and exploration of shale gas in the U.S. has an influence on the price of globally traded and transported coal, which
 in turn influences the price of electricity produced in coal-fired power stations in Europe.

Understanding the energy challenges of tomorrow means understanding these interactions between different energy producers and carriers in different spatial and temporal dimensions.

As soon as a place on the MEST programme has been confirmed, each new student is invited to submit the names of three possible tutors in preference order. The student will have made this selection based on the tutors' research and teaching activities, ensuring that there is an overlap of interests.

The list of available tutors can be found on our Tutors page. The student sends their prioritised list of preferred tutors to the Energy Science Center (ESC) who, in turn, contacts the tutors in the prioritised order. If a tutor accepts, the ESC confirms this to the student before the semester starts. In the rare event that none of the three tutors accept, the ESC contacts the student directly to find an alternate tutor.

Once a tutor has been confirmed, the student must contact the tutor prior to the start of the first semester to make an appointment to plan their academic programme with them.

Exceptionally, and with the agreement of both the original tutor and the new one, a student can change their tutor.

If this happens, the student should email Dr. Christian Schaffner (ESC Executive Director) with a Cc to the D-ITET Coordinator of Studies Reto Kreuzer, and update their Tutor/Learning Agreement accordingly.  

Additional guidance can be gained from the D-ITET Student Office.

The Tutor/Learning Agreement is an individualised study plan, listing the courses (both compulsory and elective) that the student will take during the MEST programme.

The compulsory courses must be selected from the courses offered.

The elective courses can be freely chosen, in agreement with the tutor, from any energy-related courses on offer at ETH Zurich.

None of the other credit categories of the MEST programme - the Science in Perspective (D-GESS) courses, the semester project, the internship, and the master thesis - are included in the Tutor/Learning Agreement.

MEST students, together with their tutor, need to complete the Tutor/Learning Agreement within the first four weeks of the first semester. The Tutor/Learning Agreement is updated online via myStudies following these guidelines: Download MEST myStudies Tutor/Learning Agreement (PDF, 1.1 MB)