Agent-based modeling of energy infrastructure transitions

Abstract

Transitions emerge over time as fundamental change of large-scale socio-technical systems such as energy infrastructures that are the backbone of society. To date, however, the body-of-knowledge on energy infrastructure transitions is largely descriptive. Transition management, however, does have a prescriptive character - not only can we understand transitions, we can also shape them. This implies technical system design is augmented with policy, regulation, R&D strategies: some coherent all-inclusive set of transition instruments or transition assemblage. We conjecture a transition management strategy may equate to collaborative design of such a transition assemblage. Using foundations of complex systems theory, agent-based modeling, engineering and policy design scenario analysis, design of experiments and statistical data analysis, a modeling framework has been developed that enables ex-ante assessment of alternative transition assemblage design-alternatives.