Had to look at a lot of code to get this to work and lots of testing but we have a solution:

user_pool = self.pool.get('res.users')

user = user_pool.browse(cr, SUPERUSER_ID, uid)

from_zone = pytz.timezone(user.partner_id.tz) or pytz.utc

to_zone = tz.gettz(str(from_zone))

utc = datetime.datetime.now()

utc = utc.replace(tzinfo=tz.tzutc())

now = datetime.datetime.now(tz.gettz('Europe/Berlin')).strftime('%c')