Assessing the Plurality of Actors and Policy Interactions: Agent-Based Modelling of Renewable Energy Market Integration

Abstract

The ongoing deployment of renewable energy sources (RES) calls for an enhanced integration of RES into energy markets, accompanied by a new set of regulations. In Germany, for instance, the feed-in tariff legislation for renewables has been successively replaced by first optional and then obligatory marketing of RES on competitive wholesale markets. This paper introduces an agentbasedmodel that allows studying the impact of changing energy policy instruments on the economic performance of RES operators andmarketers.Themodel structure, its components, and linkages are presented in detail; an additional case study demonstrates the capability of our sociotechnical model.We find that changes in the political framework cannot bemapped directly to RES operators as behaviour of intermediarymarket actors has to be considered as well. Characteristics and strategies of intermediaries are thus an important factor for successful RES marketing and further deployment. It is shown that the model is able to assess the emergence and stability of market niches.