scholarly journals Agent-Based Modelling of Urban District Energy System Decarbonisation—A Systematic Literature Review

Energies ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 554
Author(s):  
Ardak Akhatova ◽  
Lukas Kranzl ◽  
Fabian Schipfer ◽  
Charitha Buddhika Heendeniya

There is an increased interest in the district-scale energy transition within interdisciplinary research community. Agent-based modelling presents a suitable approach to address variety of questions related to policies, technologies, processes, and the different stakeholder roles that can foster such transition. However, it is a largely complex and versatile methodology which hinders its broader uptake by researchers as well as improved results. This state-of-the-art review focuses on the application of agent-based modelling for exploring policy interventions that facilitate the decarbonisation (i.e., energy transition) of districts and neighbourhoods while considering stakeholders’ social characteristics and interactions. We systematically select and analyse peer-reviewed literature and discuss the key modelling aspects, such as model purpose, agents and decision-making logic, spatial and temporal aspects, and empirical grounding. The analysis reveals that the most established agent-based models’ focus on innovation diffusion (e.g., adoption of solar panels) and dissemination of energy-saving behaviour among a group of buildings in urban areas. We see a considerable gap in exploring the decisions and interactions of agents other than residential households, such as commercial and even industrial energy consumers (and prosumers). Moreover, measures such as building retrofits and conversion to district energy systems involve many stakeholders and complex interactions between them that up to now have hardly been represented in the agent-based modelling environment. Hence, this work contributes to better understanding and further improving the research on transition towards decarbonised society.

Author(s):  
Ardak Akhatova ◽  
Lukas Kranzl ◽  
Fabian Schipfer ◽  
Charitha Buddhika Heendeniya

There is an increased interest in the district-scale energy transition within interdisciplinary research community. Agent-based modelling presents a suitable approach to address variety of questions related to policies, technologies, processes, and the different stakeholder roles that can foster such transition. This state-of-the-art review focuses on the application of agent-based modelling for exploring policy interventions that facilitate the decarbonisation (i.e., energy transition) of districts and neighbourhoods while considering stakeholders’ social characteristics and interactions. We systematically select and analyse peer-reviewed literature and discuss the key modelling aspects, such as model purpose, agents and decision-making logic, spatial and temporal aspects, and empirical grounding. The analysis reveals that the most established agent-based models’ focus on innovation diffusion (e.g., adoption of solar panels) and dissemination of energy-saving behaviour among a group of buildings in urban areas. We see a considerable gap in exploring the decisions and interactions of agents other than residential households, such as commercial and even industrial energy consumers (and prosumers). Moreover, measures such as building retrofits and conversion to district energy systems involve many stakeholders and complex interactions between them that up to now have hardly been represented in the agent-based modelling environment.


Energies ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 6133
Author(s):  
Georg Holtz ◽  
Christian Schnülle ◽  
Malcolm Yadack ◽  
Jonas Friege ◽  
Thorben Jensen ◽  
...  

The German Energiewende is a deliberate transformation of an established industrial economy towards a nearly CO2-free energy system accompanied by a phase out of nuclear energy. Its governance requires knowledge on how to steer the transition from the existing status quo to the target situation (transformation knowledge). The energy system is, however, a complex socio-technical system whose dynamics are influenced by behavioural and institutional aspects, which are badly represented by the dominant techno-economic scenario studies. In this paper, we therefore investigate and identify characteristics of model studies that make agent-based modelling supportive for the generation of transformation knowledge for the Energiewende. This is done by reflecting on the experiences gained from four different applications of agent-based models. In particular, we analyse whether the studies have improved our understanding of policies’ impacts on the energy system, whether the knowledge derived is useful for practitioners, how valid understanding derived by the studies is, and whether the insights can be used beyond the initial case-studies. We conclude that agent-based modelling has a high potential to generate transformation knowledge, but that the design of projects in which the models are developed and used is of major importance to reap this potential. Well-informed and goal-oriented stakeholder involvement and a strong collaboration between data collection and model development are crucial.


2015 ◽  
Vol 03 (03) ◽  
pp. 1550026 ◽  
Author(s):  
Divine Odame APPIAH ◽  
Eric Kwabena FORKUO ◽  
John Tiah BUGRI

This paper is a critical review, which synthesizes the theory-application linkage of peri-urban land use and land cover changes (LULCC) using the Bosomtwe District in the Ashanti Region of Ghana as the case. From abstractive thinking to empirical possibility, we conjecture human decisions within agent-based modeling (ABM) perspective. The key question the paper has tried to answer is: what are the probable future land use conversion and modification potentials in the district? LULCC in peri-urban areas respond to social and biophysical dynamics. These control spatial distribution of populations, infrastructure, and the space economy. Under systemic laxity of controls, peri-urban land uses deviate from effective land use plans.


2020 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  

Regarding the energy transition in terms of ecological and economical aspects, also the security in supply, safe and reliable operation and the desired ability to store renewable generated excess electrical power play a role in future grid expansion strategies. To support and release the electric grid, integrated energy systems, characterized by sectorcoupling between the energy sectors electricity, gas and heat, picture an approach to increase the storage and transmission capacity of a whole energy system. Concerning the demand side, it also has to be kept in consideration that not every kind of desired final energy has to be necessarily electrical. So power has to be supplied in the appropiate kind to satisfy the consumers’ requirements. Within the following contribution a holistic methodology is presented, which is able to deal with various compositions of domestic technical endowment for residential areas to acquire knowledge about necessary delivery power of the main three energy sectors. The types of final energy that will be considered are electricity for basic services and personal electric vehicles usage and heat for heating space and tap water. The desired kind of final energy can be delivered by onpoint power transformation, so the methodology includes several possible types of appliances and endowment. With the nearly infinite possible composition and input options it is transferable to residential areas of different dimensions and mirrors the high versatility and flexibility of the domestic sector as a decisive consumer, preliminary for later analysing e.g. whole urban areas and network infrastructures including the generators’ side. It serves as a tool to investigate in what manner power delivery characteristics change, when the configuration of final energy devices in the domestic sector is altered and what conclusions have to be drawn by the energy providers and especially the transmission system operators for electricity, gas and heat, in terms of integrated grid expansion strategies. That can either be used as a ”green meadow” approach for newly built development areas or for enlargement of already existing housing areas. Additionally to a detailed explanation of the methodology’s structure, some configuration scenarios are defined and the algorithm is executed for an exemplary residential area. Furthermore, some relevant objectives, like primary energy input, system efficiency or capital expenditure are declared to serve as rating criteria for evaluation of the investigated composition scenarios. The presented methodology provides a basis for (multi) criteria optimization of expansion strategies for integrated infrastructures in further research.


Buildings ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Lovati ◽  
Xingxing Zhang ◽  
Pei Huang ◽  
Carl Olsmats ◽  
Laura Maturi

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is becoming one of the most significant renewable sources for positive energy district (PED) in Sweden. The lack of innovative business models and financing mechanisms are the main constraints for PV’s deployment installed in local communities. This paper therefore proposes a peer-to-peer (P2P) business model for 48 individual building prosumers with PV installed in a Swedish community. It considers energy use behaviour, electricity/financial flows, ownerships and trading rules in a local electricity market. Different local electricity markets are designed and studied using agent-based modelling technique, with different energy demands, cost–benefit schemes and financial hypotheses for an optimal evaluation. This paper provides an early insight into a vast research space, i.e., the operation of an energy system through the constrained interaction of its constituting agents. The agents (48 households) show varying abilities in exploiting the common PV resource, as they achieve very heterogeneous self-sufficiency levels (from ca. 15% to 30%). The lack of demand side management suggests that social and lifestyle differences generate huge impacts on the ability to be self-sufficient with a shared, limited PV resource. Despite the differences in self-sufficiency, the sheer energy amount obtained from the shared PV correlates mainly with annual cumulative demand.


2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinxi Yang ◽  
Christian Azar ◽  
Kristian Lindgren

Transitioning to a low-carbon electricity system requires investments on a very large scale. These investments require access to capital, but that access can be challenging to obtain. Most energy system models do not (explicitly) model investment financing and thereby fail to take this challenge into account. In this study, we develop an agent-based model, where we explicitly include power sector investment financing. We find that different levels of financing constraints and capital availabilities noticeably impact companies' investment choices and economic performances and that this, in turn, impacts the development of the electricity capacity mix and the pace at which CO2 emissions are reduced. Limited access to capital can delay investments in low-carbon technologies. However, if the financing constraint is too relaxed, the risk of going bankrupt can increase. In general, companies that anticipate carbon prices too high above or too far below the actual development, along with those that use a low hurdle rate, are the ones that are more likely to go bankrupt. Emissions are cut more rapidly when the carbon tax grows faster, but there is overall a greater tendency for agents to go bankrupt when the tax grows faster. Our energy transition model may be particularly useful in the context of the least financially developed markets.


2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xun-You Ni ◽  
Daniel (Jian) Sun

With the increasing popularity of smart phones, Parking Reservation System (PRS) becomes practical to reduce the travel time in cruising for vacant spaces. The aim of this study is to assess the impact of PRS explicitly. This paper was started with analyzing the processes of cruising for vacant spaces and making parking reservation decisions. The vehicles were divided into two categories: the intelligent vehicles and the regular ones. Only the intelligent vehicles have the ability to make a parking reservation beforehand, while the regular ones have to cruise for vacant spaces. All involved components were treated as different agents, including vehicles, parking lots, network, and management center. Based on this, agent-based simulation was introduced to evaluate the performances of the scenarios with different penetration rates. The simulation results indicate the average travel time increases with the improvement of the penetration rates for the regular vehicles. The assessment method presented in this study would assist in promoting the performances of PRS in urban areas.


2014 ◽  
Vol 511-512 ◽  
pp. 787-790
Author(s):  
Guang Wei Zhao

This paper seeks to focus on a combined waste (or: wastewater)/energy system in the deep green housing district. An innovative mixture of red and green development is presented, together with a concept of building integrated decentralized technologies for wastewater and organic waste treatment with energy and nutrients recovery. The concept is called sustainable implant. It is important to change the general attitude towards the different components of design, development, use and management of urban areas. A way to do so is the interconnection of different themes and cycles within cities. An example is the linking of sanitation to energy and food production. The paper shows the potentials of integrating solutions concerning energy and sanitation flows as near as possible to its origin of use and/or production. Introducing the analogy of the functioning of buildings (with respect to energy and sanitation flows) with that of a parasite. The system layout and the dimensioning backgrounds are explained in this paper. Additional emphasis is put on maintenance, conservation and administration of the integrated whole, and the possible consequences for the district and its inhabitants. There are scale limitations concerning the proposed (and realized) systems. Besides that there is a matter of a unique situation with an intentional community. Although two similar systems, however small, have been realized, no other project (in process of realization) can be found worldwide in which there is a linking of urban agriculture, waste (water) treatment and energy production at the scale of an urban district.


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