Mostafa Shaaban
Doktorand
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Title
A dynamic sustainability assessment of electricity supply technologies in Germany: A spatial agent-based model combined with multi-criteria decision analysis
Mentor
Prof. Dr. Jürgen Scheffran
Background of the project
In response to the increasing demand of electricity, decision makers are concerned with the installation of new power plants. Moreover, the risks encountered by current coal and nuclear power plants in Germany induce decision makers to look for alternatives to replace them. The German government has started decommissioning nuclear power plants after the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan in 2011 with a plan to completely shut down all of them by 2022. However, the decision making process should be pursued carefully with the consideration of the sustainability of the future energy supply. Thus, decision makers are recommended to assess all possible technologies in a dynamic sustainable approach with the involvement of all stakeholders who could be affected by the decision. The dynamic assessment covers the temporal and spatial variations of the technologies as well as the variations of the preferences of the assessment approach of the technologies by the stakeholders.
Objectives
This study investigates scenarios and strategies for future planning of the electricity supply mix in Germany, with an emphasis on alternative energy pathways and a sustainable electricity supply mix as part of an energy roadmap till the year 2100.
The aim of this study is to answer the research questions:
- Which conditions and criteria are relevant for a sustainable and secure future energy-mix in Germany?
- What are major scenarios for energy landscapes in Germany in the future, taking human-environment interactions into consideration?
Method
In this study I apply a novel approach to integrate three methodologies: multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA), agent- based modeling (ABM) and spatial data analysis based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS). Different electricity supply technologies will be assessed and compared according to multiple assessment indicators and multiple agents to achieve a comprehensive sustainability assessment covering technical, social, economic and environmental aspects of these technologies. I use the open source ABM software “NetLogo” to explicitly represent spatial agents across space and time as they decide on different energy pathways, taking into consideration environmental factors that vary across the landscape and create non-uniform environments for each energy type.
An ABM is developed, using inputs from the MCDA assessment and expert evaluations of projected future electricity demand to compare different electricity mix scenarios and sustainability of land use. The criteria are evaluated on two dimensions (time and space) against different potential electricity supply technologies, integrating the input data into the ABM software (Netlogo). Then, different mix scenarios are evaluated for sustainability. The multi-criteria assessment is applied to classify typical agents characterized by weighted priorities for certain criteria sets. These types of agents are then used in ABMs where agents follow these priorities to select energy pathways that meet these criteria. Agent decision-rules are applied to a GIS-based spatial (cellular) model landscape, taking into account spatially specific environmental and socio-economic conditions.