Research Priorities
Research at IEK-STE focuses on four key areas:
- Energy systems as socio-technical configurations: Generating socio-technical scenarios primarily involves integrating aspects such as energy systems modelling, economic models, and sociological methods to depict and evaluate future energy realities that are socially feasible.
Energy systems and the land-water-energy nexus: Looking beyond energy systems, we are developing an integrated assessment framework for the land–water-energy nexus and for bioeconomy in the context of energy systems transformation.
Our work is rooted in a sound understanding of the complex interactions between stakeholders and their different attitudes, preferences, objectives, perceptions, and expectations. We analyse possible governance strategies and their consequences for transformation pathways.
- Energy infrastructures: To analyse and predict the security of supply and robustness of an overall energy system, we develop methods drawn from data sciences and network theory, and apply them to energy infrastructures and time series.
Energy technologies and life cycles: We select technologies that are both highly relevant to society and highly significant for the transformation of the energy system, and we investigate and evaluate these technologies throughout their entire life cycle on the basis of life cycle sustainability assessments (LCSA).
Building on our in-depth understanding, we conduct research into complex technical structures and networks, develop characterizations of technologies within innovation processes, and provide comprehensive technology-specific data sets.
