A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
A platform for research: civil engineering, architecture and urbanism
Creating transparent, plausible, relevant, and consistent energy scenarios
The transformation towards a sustainable energy system is characterized by highly complex and uncertain processes. Energy scenario development is a tool to generate strategies to manage this process. However, the traditional practices of energy scenario development are primarily focusing on modelling processes that contain a mathematical description of essential technical and economic system properties such as efficiency of technologies, installed capacities, CO2 emission factors as well as investments and operating costs. In most quantitative energy scenarios social impacts such as changing institutions, practices, and value systems in which technological and economical energy systems are embedded, are lacking. That is why those energy scenarios are criticised as being not transparent about intrinsic assumptions and uncertainties which result in predispositions. In addition, criteria such as plausibility, consistency, consistent, and relevance are important determinants to ensure the development of energy scenarios that provide valid insights on future energy challenges and policy implications. This paper will present a multimethod design to generate qualitative scenarios, which is characterised by deliberative and analytical phases. In the first phase deliberative methods; meaning the inclusion of external experts; are applied to develop draft storylines from scratch integrating multiple perspectives and sources of expertise. In the next phase the Future Wheel-method was used to identify direct and indirect consequences of focused trends derived from the draft storylines. This was followed by a Cross-Impact Balance analysis in the interest of ensuring consistency. In a fourth phase the draft qualitative energy scenarios are deliberatively tested. Our findings reflect on how the applied multimethod design has contributed to create transparency, plausibility, consistency, and relevance.
Creating transparent, plausible, relevant, and consistent energy scenarios
The transformation towards a sustainable energy system is characterized by highly complex and uncertain processes. Energy scenario development is a tool to generate strategies to manage this process. However, the traditional practices of energy scenario development are primarily focusing on modelling processes that contain a mathematical description of essential technical and economic system properties such as efficiency of technologies, installed capacities, CO2 emission factors as well as investments and operating costs. In most quantitative energy scenarios social impacts such as changing institutions, practices, and value systems in which technological and economical energy systems are embedded, are lacking. That is why those energy scenarios are criticised as being not transparent about intrinsic assumptions and uncertainties which result in predispositions. In addition, criteria such as plausibility, consistency, consistent, and relevance are important determinants to ensure the development of energy scenarios that provide valid insights on future energy challenges and policy implications. This paper will present a multimethod design to generate qualitative scenarios, which is characterised by deliberative and analytical phases. In the first phase deliberative methods; meaning the inclusion of external experts; are applied to develop draft storylines from scratch integrating multiple perspectives and sources of expertise. In the next phase the Future Wheel-method was used to identify direct and indirect consequences of focused trends derived from the draft storylines. This was followed by a Cross-Impact Balance analysis in the interest of ensuring consistency. In a fourth phase the draft qualitative energy scenarios are deliberatively tested. Our findings reflect on how the applied multimethod design has contributed to create transparency, plausibility, consistency, and relevance.
Creating transparent, plausible, relevant, and consistent energy scenarios
Heinrichs, Heidi (author) / Voegele, Stefan (author) / Gotzens, Fabian (author) / Gillessen, Bastian (author) / Schumann, Diana (author) / Shamon, Hawal (author) / Kunz, Paul (author) / Biss, Klaus (author) / Ernst, Anna (author)
2017-01-01
Energy for Society: 1st International Conference on Energy Research and Social Science, Sitges, Spain, 2017-04-02 - 2017-04-05
Conference paper
Electronic Resource
English
DDC:
690
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