Investment in the future electricity system - An agent-based modelling approach

Now that renewable technologies are both technically and commercially mature, the imperfect rational behaviour of investors becomes a critical factor in the future success of the energy transition. Here, we take an agent-based approach to model investor decision making in the electricity sector by modelling investors as actors with different (heterogeneous) anticipations of the future. With only a limited set of assumptions, this generic model replicates the dynamics of the liberalised electricity market of the last decades and points out dynamics that are to be expected as the energy transition progresses. Importantly, these dynamics are emergent properties of the evolving electricity system resulting from actor (investor) behaviour. We have experimented with varying carbon price scenarios and find that incorporating heterogeneous investor behaviour results in a large bandwidth of possible transition pathways, and that the depth of renewables penetration is correlated with the variability of their power generation pattern. Furthermore, a counter-intuitive trend was observed, namely that average profits of investors are seen to increase with carbon prices. These results are a vivid and generic illustration that outcome-based policy cannot be solely based on market instruments that rely on perfect rational and perfectly informed agents.Energy & Industr

Construction of a Spin-Echo Small-Angle Neutron Scattering Instrument for the PIK Reactor

Abstract: The current state of the implementation of the project for building a spin-echo instrument for small-angle neutron scattering at the PIK reactor of the St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Institute, National Research Center “Kurchatov Institute,” is described. In the course of the project, work is carried out on mathematical modeling, and the design and manufacture of prototypes of the instrument units. Both the optical elements of the instrument and the design of the precession magnets are optimized. The developed model of precession magnets underlies the design submitted for manufacturing. The model of a radio-frequency adiabatic flipper is tested. The test results demonstrate the flipper performance in the range of fields with an induction from 5 to 66 mT.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.BUS/Quantum Delf