The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition: the Case of Smart Grids

The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition: the Case of Smart Grids Amin Dehdarian École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) / Switzerland The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

What is the domain of this research? • Why Smart Grids Matter? • What is the problem? • How to approach the problem? • Methodology? • What is the way forward? The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

Urbanization Climate Change Sustainable Urban Energy Infrastructure Institutional/ Technological Development Governance Of UES Transition Promotion of Sustainable Energy Sources Reducing the Dependency to Unsustainable Energy Sources System Efficiency Improvement Renewable Energy Production Energy Conservation

Urbanization Climate Change Sustainable Urban Energy Infrastructure A framework for the governance of urban energy system transition Institutional/ Technological Development Governance Of UES Transition Promotion of Sustainable Energy Sources Reducing the Dependency to Unsustainable Energy Sources System Efficiency Improvement Renewable Energy Production Energy Conservation

Governance and Dynamics Technological changes/ Wider technical base Wider Institutional Environment External Funding Knowledge/ Technology Transfer Renewable Energy Production Independency to Unsustainable Energy Sources Investment System Efficiency Institutional Change Sustainable UES Energy Conservation Cultural Learning Technical Base Local Resources Financial Capability Institutional Capability The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

Why Smart Grid matters? • New Paradigms: • Distributed Energy Generation (DEG) • Real-time Data (RTD) • Demand Management (DM) • Smart Grid: an electricity network that can intelligently integrate the actions of all users connected to in order to efficiently deliver sustainable, economic and secure electricity supplies. The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

Urbanization Climate Change Sustainable Urban Energy Infrastructure Institutional/ Technological Development Governance Of UES Transition Promotion of Sustainable Energy Sources Reducing the Dependency to Unsustainable Energy Sources Smart Grids System Efficiency Improvement Renewable Energy Production Energy Conservation

Problem Statement • Cost-intensive • Not market-driven • Needs to policy intervention and regulation • Research Question: “How policy interventions and regulations in electricity systems influence the governance of transition to smart grids in urban energy systems?” The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

Problem Owners • Strategic decision makers • Regulators, policy makers, mayors, big businesses and utility companies • Practitioners • NGOs, producers, operators, distributors, etc. • Researchers • Energy transition, urban planning, Complexity science, etc. The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

How to approach the problem? Urban Studies Multi-level Governance Local Policies and agency Competitiveness or growth Urban Development & Sustainability Urban Energy Infrastructure City as a complex socio-technical system Multi-level governance of a multi-actor system Policy implementation for the emergence of transition Urban level Complexity Theory Socio-technical Systems Multi-actor Emergence Sector/National level The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

Methodology • Complex system approach • City as a multi-actor and socio-technical system • Transition science • Intervention of policies and regulations in order to make the transition happen in urban electricity infrastructure • Agent-based modeling • Bottom-up approach, transition as an emergent phenomenon The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

Next Steps • Primary analysis of smart grids, application of micro-grids and smart metering roll-out in urban areas • System and Actor analysis • Modeling two different levels: • Technological level • Social level: proactive and reactive actors • Policy selection, analysis and intervention The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

Amin Dehdarian amin.dehdarian@epfl.ch Thank you for your attention The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition

The Governance of Urban Energy System Transition: the Case of Smart Grids