Natasa Vulic, PhD

Scientist

Laboratory for Urban Energy Systems, Empa
Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology
Überlandstrasse 129
CH-8600 Dübendorf

Email:

Tel: + 41 58 765 61 11

ORCIDid | LinkedIn

Currently Professor in renewable energy and building technology at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Northwestern Switzerland (personal profile)

About

Natasa Vulic is a Scientist in urban energy systems with a PhD in Electrical Engineering and more than nine years of research experience. She has an interdisciplinary background in energy systems, and demonstrated skills in data analysis, visualization, modeling and simulation. Her main research interests are renewable energy integration and energy-related retrofits within the built environment. Specifically, her research work involves modeling and simulation of enabling strategies and technologies, including the environmental and economic impacts of their implementation.

During her graduate studies, she broadened her perspective on the technological, economic, and policy challenges of transitioning to renewable energy as part of a highly-selective interdisciplinary program IGERT: SUN. Her doctoral thesis focused on a more fundamental aspect of solar energy generation, where she utilized both experimental and computational methods to conduct in-depth research on ways to improve solar cell performance, while keeping the big picture in mind. Prior to this, she received concurrent BSc degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Sustainability.

Projects

Ongoing projects

Past projects

  • Energetische Analyse des BBL Gebäudeparks
  • VSE Verteilnetzstudie
  • Abklärungen Sanierungen (MuKEn)
  • VSE Energiezukunft 2050, final report
  • aliunid - Versorgung "neu," final report

Publications

  • L Brodnicke, A Ganter, S Tröber, G Sansavini, N Vulic, "Dynamic grid emission factors and export limits reduce emission abatement and cost benefits of building PV systems," Energy and Buildings, 2024. (link)
  • N Vulic, M Rüdisüli, K Orehounig, ”Evaluating energy flexibility requirements for high shares of variable renewable energy: A heuristic approach,”Energy, 2023. (link)
  • N Vulic, M Sulzer, M Rüdisüli, K Orehounig, ”Role of temporary thermostat adjustments as a fast, low-cost measure in reducing energy imports,” Environmental Research Communications, 2022. (link)
  • S Eggimann, N Vulic, M Rüdisüli, R Mutschler, K Orehounig, M Sulzer, ”Spatiotemporal upscaling errors of building stock clustering for energy demand simulation,” Energy and Buildings 258, 2022. (link)
  • K Orehounig, L Fierz, J Allan, S Eggimann, N Vulic, A Bojarski, ”CESAR-P: A dynamic urban building energy simulation tool,” Journal of Open Source Software, 7 (78), 2022. (link)
  • N Vulic, Nanostructured approaches to light-management in thin silicon solar cells and silicon-based tandems, PhD Diss., Arizona State University, 2019. (link)
  • N Vulic, JV Carpenter, P Firth, N Rodkey, ZC Holman and SM Goodnick, “Pore formation in silicon nanoparticle thin films and their impact on optical properties,” ACS Applied Energy Materials 2 (12), 2019. (link)
  • N Vulic and SM Goodnick, “Analysis of recombination processes in polytype gallium arsenide nanowires,” Nano Energy 56, 2019. (link)

Full list available on GoogleScholar.

Student supervision

2024

  • Semester project student, G Nappi, MSc ETH Zurich

2023

  • Bachelor thesis student, M Vogt, BSc ETH Zurich

2022

  • Master thesis student, Q Li, MSc ETH Zurich. Co-supervision with Dr. Hanmin Cai
  • Semester project student, N Bichsel, MSc ETH Zurich
  • Semester project student, Q Li, MSc ETH Zurich
  • Master thesis student, S Tröber, MSc ETH Zurich

Teaching

2023-

2022

Grants