Digitalization, autonomy and the future of energy policy

IF 6.9 2区经济学 Q1 ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Energy Research & Social Science Pub Date : 2025-06-21 DOI:10.1016/j.erss.2025.104167

Fabian Heymann , Sinan Küfeoğlu , Matthias Galus

{"title":"Digitalization, autonomy and the future of energy policy","authors":"Fabian Heymann , Sinan Küfeoğlu , Matthias Galus","doi":"10.1016/j.erss.2025.104167","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Digital technologies and the increasing availability and use of data are transforming policymaking worldwide. While many studies have carved out the current effects, benefits and risks of data and digital technologies for policymaking, little attempts have been made to analyze the potential directions these trends will eventually lead to. Using a conceptual lens, we start by briefly describing the digitalization phenomena and how digital technologies are currently adopted along the policymaking cycle, with a special emphasis on energy policy. Building on these findings, and lending theoretical foundations from autonomous systems and control, we develop an outlook on the potential evolution of energy policymaking under further digitalization. Applying the elaborated 6-staged framework of autonomy in policymaking, we show that energy policymaking witnesses a mostly unnoted shift towards higher autonomy levels, being only halfway from what would be fully autonomous policymaking. The increasingly automated policymaking process, in energy policy and beyond, does raise important societal questions - on the technical design, societal trade-offs and ethical dilemmas that should become urgently addressed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48384,"journal":{"name":"Energy Research & Social Science","volume":"127 ","pages":"Article 104167"},"PeriodicalIF":6.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-06-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Energy Research & Social Science","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629625002488","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES","Score":null,"Total":0}

引用次数: 0

Abstract

Digital technologies and the increasing availability and use of data are transforming policymaking worldwide. While many studies have carved out the current effects, benefits and risks of data and digital technologies for policymaking, little attempts have been made to analyze the potential directions these trends will eventually lead to. Using a conceptual lens, we start by briefly describing the digitalization phenomena and how digital technologies are currently adopted along the policymaking cycle, with a special emphasis on energy policy. Building on these findings, and lending theoretical foundations from autonomous systems and control, we develop an outlook on the potential evolution of energy policymaking under further digitalization. Applying the elaborated 6-staged framework of autonomy in policymaking, we show that energy policymaking witnesses a mostly unnoted shift towards higher autonomy levels, being only halfway from what would be fully autonomous policymaking. The increasingly automated policymaking process, in energy policy and beyond, does raise important societal questions - on the technical design, societal trade-offs and ethical dilemmas that should become urgently addressed.

查看原文本刊更多论文

数字化、自主化和能源政策的未来

数字技术和日益增加的数据可用性和使用正在改变全球的政策制定。虽然许多研究已经明确了数据和数字技术对政策制定的当前影响、好处和风险，但很少有人尝试分析这些趋势最终将导致的潜在方向。从概念角度出发，我们首先简要描述了数字化现象，以及数字技术目前如何在政策制定周期中被采用，并特别强调了能源政策。在这些发现的基础上，并借鉴自主系统和控制的理论基础，我们对进一步数字化下能源决策的潜在演变进行了展望。我们在政策制定中应用了精心设计的6阶段自治框架，表明能源政策制定见证了向更高自治水平的转变，这一转变几乎没有被注意到，距离完全自主的政策制定只有一半。在能源政策和其他领域，日益自动化的决策过程确实提出了重要的社会问题——技术设计、社会权衡和道德困境，这些问题应该立即得到解决。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

求助全文

约1分钟内获得全文求助全文

来源期刊

Energy Research & Social Science ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES-

CiteScore

14.00

自引率

16.40%

发文量

441

审稿时长

55 days

期刊介绍： Energy Research & Social Science (ERSS) is a peer-reviewed international journal that publishes original research and review articles examining the relationship between energy systems and society. ERSS covers a range of topics revolving around the intersection of energy technologies, fuels, and resources on one side and social processes and influences - including communities of energy users, people affected by energy production, social institutions, customs, traditions, behaviors, and policies - on the other. Put another way, ERSS investigates the social system surrounding energy technology and hardware. ERSS is relevant for energy practitioners, researchers interested in the social aspects of energy production or use, and policymakers. Energy Research & Social Science (ERSS) provides an interdisciplinary forum to discuss how social and technical issues related to energy production and consumption interact. Energy production, distribution, and consumption all have both technical and human components, and the latter involves the human causes and consequences of energy-related activities and processes as well as social structures that shape how people interact with energy systems. Energy analysis, therefore, needs to look beyond the dimensions of technology and economics to include these social and human elements.