Impacts of social innovation on local energy transitions: Diffusion of solar PV and alternative fuel vehicles in Sweden

Local energy transitions are gaining widespread attention through their contribution to sustainability, notably to climate change mitigation. Social innovation (SI) in local energy transitions have been scrutinized in multiple works, but the impact of SI on the local energy transitions is an under-studied field. The objective of this study is to put forward a method to model SI in local energy transitions. This is done using System Dynamics modelling (SDM) of the local energy transitions processes. The SDM method is to study a broad spectrum of socio-techno-natural phenomena, generally. In this study, SDM is used to capture the endogenous factors which underpin the transition processes. This study is based on two cases: solar photovoltaics (PV) diffusion in Sk\ue5ne, and transition to alternative fuel vehicles (AFV) in Dalsland, Sweden. The transitions are modelled with the municipality actors providing input. Two simulation runs of the local transitions are executed, namely the Base run and No SI run. The Base run has the municipality actors’ co-creation actions. Results show that the co-creation actions induce a significant increase in the diffusion of electric vehicles in Dalsland and higher diffusion of solar PV in Sk\ue5ne. The main outcome of this study is a model to assess the possible impacts of SI on local energy transitions. Ultimately, we hope to contribute to methods of quantitatively assessing the impact of SI in local energy transitions

Determining the factors of household energy transitions: A multi-domain study

Energy transitions at the household level are important because there are so many households, and motives and barriers to these transitions processes are not well understood. The objective of this paper is to investigate explanatory variables of household energy transitions. We select papers investigating explanatory variables underpinning household energy transitions in three domains: adoption of solar photovoltaics (PV) in households, adoption/transition to sustainable residential heating systems (RHS) and adoption/transition to alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs). In all three domains the chosen literature employ a wide variety of quantitative analyses such as discrete choice models ranging from multinomial logit models and principal component analysis to qualitative assessment of the answers through inductive analysis. The explanatory variables are categorized in six superordinate explanatory variable categories of economic factors, environmental factors, personal preferences and values, social factors, household characteristics and market and policy factors. In total we identify 31 explanatory variables which have been investigated in the 38 articles chosen, falling under the six categories. Investment cost is an important explanatory variable for all three domains, but a policy variable such as government subsidy could mitigate the former explanatory variable. We propose a conceptual framework as an initial step towards understanding the interactions and impacts of the explanatory variables with each other

Understanding social innovation in local energy transitions processes: A multi-case study

Social innovation (SI) in local energy transitions is gaining focus in current times but energy transitions have not yet been explicitly analysed in the context of SI. Our objective is to characterize SI in co-created local energy transitions processes through the study of three distinct cases based on energy transitions in localities in Sweden (Sk\ue5ne and Dalsland) and Denmark (Hj\uf8rring). In these localities, municipality actors (MA) are engaged in increasing the adoption of solar PV systems, uptake of EV and biogas cars, and phasing out oil-burners, respectively. We analyse the three cases by following the work of the MAs and through the frame of Transformative Social Innovation (TSI), which consists of four shades; social innovation, system innovation, game-changers, and narratives of change. Subsequently, we use causal loop diagrams to characterize the SI in the oil-burner phase-out case. We see shades of SI and system innovation but there are no ‘game changers’ or ‘narratives of change’ yet in any of the cases

Integrating the urban planning process into energy systems models for future urban heating system planning: A participatory approach

For local governments and municipalities, both urban and energy planning are required to make the transition to more energy efficient cities with lower carbon emissions. However, energy planning and urban planning are usually under the responsibility of different departments and have their own planning processes. When dealing with energy plans, this separation could lead to a less effective impact on cities in reaching climate goals since a lack of coordination may result in different strategies set out by the two plans. In consideration of the fact that space heating dominates the energy use in buildings, this study has a focus on urban heating systems in the building sector. We propose an integrative municipal heat planning methodology investigating which features of the urban planning process that could be integrated into a spatially explicit energy systems model and how. The proposed methodology is then applied to a specific case: the heating system in the municipality of Lyngby-Taarbaek, Denmark. The inclusion of stakeholders from both the heat and urban planning departments in the case study enabled us to reflect on their preferences and expectations for the future heating system. Finally, the applicability of the methodology and the application results are discussed and compared to other methods

Communal or individual – Exploring cost-efficient heating of new city-level housing in a systems perspective

As cities expand, new buildings are constructed and they require heating. With increasing integration of the heating and electricity sectors and forecasts of rapid growth in electricity demand, heating choices become critical for the sustainability transition. The main heating options are communal or individual, where the communal option is represented by district heating (DH) and the individual option mainly by heat pumps or biomass heating. Which option is best from the cost perspective depends on the building type and on the energy system development. Thus, this paper investigates cost-efficient heating of new city-level housing in a systems perspective under various scenarios. The investigation was carried out using an energy systems optimization model based on a case representing Swedish conditions. A dynamic approach was used to investigate cost-efficient development of the supply side and demand side simultaneously. The results indicate that the most cost-efficient heating systems are: DH for apartment buildings; and individual heating options for single-family housing with low heat demands. For large single-family housing with high heat demands, the cost-efficient solution depends on the heat demand profile. Higher heat use during winter favors DH and individual biomass boilers, but diminishes the economic feasibility of individual heat pumps

The Impact of Local Climate Policy on District Heating Development in a Nordic city – a Dynamic Approach

On a national level, Sweden has announced plans to have no net emissions of greenhouse gases in 2045. Furthermore, Gothenburg, a city in southwestern Sweden, has plans to phase out the use of fossil fuels in its heat and electricity production by 2030. Given that the development of a district heating (DH) system under dynamic and different climate policies and climate goals is a nontrivial problem, this study investigates two different policies of phasing out fossil fuels, either by introducing a fossil fuel ban, or by increasing the carbon tax to phase out the fossil fuel use in 2030 or 2045. The effects of the different phase out strategies on the future development of the existing DH system in Gothenburg has been investigated. The study is based on a system-wide approach covering both the supply and demand side developments. A TIMES system cost optimization model representing the DH system of Gothenburg was developed and applied for calculations. The results show that the total amount of heat supplied by the DH system is unaffected by the phase out policies. The amount of natural gas used to supply the DH system is however dependent on what kind of phase out policy is implemented. A yearly linearly increasing carbon tax policy introduced in 2021 phases out fossil fuel use earlier than the target year, while a ban phases out the fossil fuel only from the actual target year

Perimeter-Degree: A Priori Metric for Directly Measuring and Homogenizing Interconnection Complexity in Multilevel Placement

In this paper, we describe an accurate metric (perimeter-degree) for measuring interconnection complexity and effective use of it for controlling congestion in a multilevel framework. Perimeter-degree is useful for uniformly spreading interconnection density. In modern designs interconnects consume significant area and power. By making interconnect spread homogeneous, it is possible to improve routability as well as power dissipation distribution

Multi-objective hypergraph partitioning algorithms for cut and maximum subdomain degree minimization

In this paper we present a family of multi-objective hypergraph partitioning algorithms based on the multilevel paradigm, which are capable of producing solutions in which both the cut and the maximum subdomain degree are simultaneously minimized. This type of partitionings are critical for existing and emerging applications in VLSI CAD as they allow to both minimize and evenly distribute the interconnects across the physical devices. Our experimental evaluation on the ISPD98 benchmark show that our algorithms produce solutions that when compared against those produced by hMETIS have a maximum subdomain degree that is reduced by up to 36 % while achieving comparable quality in terms of cut

THETO - A Fast and High-Quality Partitioning Driven Global Placer

Partitioning driven placement approaches are often preferred for fast and scalable solutions to large placement problems. However, due to the inaccuracy of representing wirelength objective by cut objective the quality of such placements often trails the quality of placements produced by pure wirelength driven placements. In this paper we present THETO, a new partitioning driven global placement algorithm that retains the speed associated with traditional partitioning driven placement algorithms but incorporates a number of novel ideas that allows it to produce solutions whose quality is better than those produced by more sophisticated and computationally expensive algorithms. The keys to THETO's success are a new terminal propagation method that allows the partitioner to better capture the characteristics of the various cut nets and a new post-bisectioning refinement step that enhances the effectiveness of the new terminal propagation. Experiments on the ISPD98 benchmarks shows that THETO produces global placement solutions that are 6% better in terms of the half perimeter wirelength than Dragon while requiring significantly less time