Abstract
In the context of the energy transition, sound decision making regarding the development of renewable energy systems faces various technical and societal challenges. In addition to climate-related uncertainties affecting technical issues of reliable grid planning, there are also subtle aspects and uncertainties related to the integration of energy technologies into built environments. Citizens’ opinions on grid development may be ambiguous or divergent in terms of broad acceptance of the energy transition in general, and they may have negative attitudes towards concrete planning in their local environment. First, this article identifies the issue of discrepancies between preferences of a fixed stakeholder group with respect to the question of the integration of renewable energy technology, posed from different perspectives and at different points in time, and considers it as a fundamental problem in the context of robust decision making in sustainable energy system planning. Second, for dealing with that issue, a novel dynamic decision support methodology is presented that includes multiple surveys, statistical analysis of the discrepancies that may arise, and multicriteria decision analysis that specifically incorporates the opinions of citizens. Citizens are considered as stakeholders and participants in smart decision-making processes. A case study applying agent-based simulations underlines the relevance of the methodology proposed for decision making in the context of renewable energies.
Highlights
Accepted: 27 January 2022In recent decades, a steady increase in CO2 emissions by the global population has significantly contributed to manmade climate change, the consequences of which are already being felt [1,2,3,4]
This paper addresses the question of how decision makers can be supported in regional grid expansion and sustainable energy technology (SET) integration issues, while taking into account the opinions and aforementioned possible ambiguities of the population directly affected by concrete planning and implementation, and proposes a novel methodology that includes structured double surveys, statistical evaluations regarding socioeconomic factors as drivers for the mentioned discrepancies, and multicriteria decision analysis to consider various criteria in final decisions in addition to citizen acceptance
Direct correlation between events and socioeconomic factors and attitudes can be determined and communicated in comprehensible ways, as illustrated in the study which shows a typical case of NIMBY
Summary
Accepted: 27 January 2022In recent decades, a steady increase in CO2 emissions by the global population has significantly contributed to manmade climate change, the consequences of which are already being felt [1,2,3,4]. Discussions have been taking place at various levels—both nationally and internationally—on the awareness of the problem and the need for global or international efforts [5,6] to sustainably reduce greenhouse gases—first and foremost CO2—in order to limit the increase in the Earth’s average temperature to such an extent that tipping points are avoided Such efforts to drastically reduce CO2 emissions are defined by national agendas and politically set milestones, which mainly foresee a stepwise reduction in greenhouse gas emissions towards climate neutrality in all sectors [7,8] by approximately the middle of the 21st century.
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