Supporting Sustainable Evolution of Electrical Energy Systems via Closed-Loop Consumer Behavior and Market System Modeling

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Energy and power systems generate many societal benefits, such as reliable and affordable electricity, jobs, and economic growth, but they also produce harmful emissions and waste. Two approaches to reducing the environmental impacts of the electricity grid are (1) to promote a greater penetration of renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power, and (2) to reduce the total amount of electric energy consumption through behavioral changes. However, such large-scale changes raise important questions and concerns about secondary impacts on the workforce, energy costs, and grid reliability. Thus, the success of an electricity grid transformation will be influenced by the closed-loop decision-making of various stakeholders, including government regulators, power companies, and consumers. Viewing this as a multi-agent system, this proposal seeks to generate new knowledge on stakeholder behavior and explore novel approaches for electricity system modeling. An improved system model that incorporates a deep understanding of consumer behavior can support producer and policy decision-making regarding the portfolio of power sources, messages directed toward consumers, availability of incentives, renewable energy program offerings, and other policy alternatives. Through more informed producer and policy decisions, the U.S. electricity sector will be able to grow in a more secure, resilient, and sustainable manner. In addition, this proposal will advance interdisciplinary education through cross-disciplinary teaching, student research opportunities, and conference workshops to promote collaborative research, thereby contributing to more well-rounded graduates for the future U.S. workforce. The proposed research involves three thrusts: (1) consumer behavior experiments, (2) multi-agent market system modeling, and (3) integrated consumer and market simulation testing for usability and value to decision-making and trade-off analysis. In Thrust 1, consumer behavior experiments will examine electricity choices, investigating how social norms and incentives impact consumer energy use, the likelihood of purchasing more efficient products, and the likelihood of opting into renewable energy credit programs. This will lead to an improved fundamental understanding of consumer attitudes and behaviors related to electricity choices. These experimental results from Thrust 1 will inform the creation of an agent-based model of an electricity system in Thrust 2, which will be used to examine how different assumptions, model architectures, and policy scenarios affect the system-level outcomes. This will provide evidence on the suitability of complex systems modeling approaches and structures for simulating energy market systems, as well as baseline policy and intervention analysis results. Finally, experimental vignettes conducted with energy industry and policy decision-makers in Thrust 3 will examine the simulation's usability, perceived value, and key findings, serving to both validate the system model and provide directions for future work.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.