Exploring Interactive Energy Alternative Futures: Enhancing the Understanding of Decision Makers Through Simulation Game-Based Modeling

Amy Adcock · Adrian Gheorghe

Wed., June 10, 5:00–7:00, Great Hall (4th floor, Central)

The U.S. Energy Sector faces critical challenges in the future: Fuel supplies need to be secured and greenhouse gas emissions reduced significantly while acceptable and desirable levels of economic growth and energy supply need to be maintained. In the U.S. and around the globe, the general public, key opinion leaders, experts, and decision makers are looking for resilient and sustainable answers on issues concerning these challenges. Energy scenarios available for target populations shed light on the myriad of pathways to achieve these goals but are difficult to analyze and interpret due to the complexity, divergent opinions, and controversy surrounding this issue.

The proposed research addresses an initiative to integrate energy modeling and simulation findings into a simulation game-based environment. The research deliverable is communication-oriented software called Interactive Energy Futures Game Based Modeling. The goal of the modeling effort and the associated software is to provide an opportunity to integrate knowledge-based results with subjective value judgments acquired from a variety of stakeholders currently involved in the energy decision making process, leading to an enhanced understanding of feasible energy alternatives through the interactive construction of sensitivity maps of technology choices. Similar software has already been developed and implemented in China, Switzerland, and Romania.

Among the critical questions to be addressed by such an effort is: Which systems or energy mixes come closest to the ideal “clean and green”, create jobs, exhibit reliably low accident risks, and show resiliency in relation to other technical and societal infrastructures?

Answers are usually gathered by using a systemic, multidisciplinary, bottom-up methodology for the assessment of energy (technological) systems. Through the design and implementation of a simulation game-based environment, players can address these questions and see the resulting impact in real time. The aim is to account for differences in perception and value systems of players or agents, e.g., individuals, organizations, agencies, as they play the game and discover the resulting impacts of their choices.

The first phase of the simulation game development uses a “collective” player and involves the ranking of energy scenarios via simultaneous acceptance of multiple attributes. Players can adjust attributes “on the fly” to envision how mixes of energy delivery systems and their impact on the surrounding environment and financial markets. This and future versions of the game, including affordances for an MMO game format, will be presented.

The main concept for this product is to allow players to interactively identify and quantify alternative energy futures through simulation game-based modeling. By employing a variety of sustainability and independence merit criteria, game play presents a differentiated landscape of the merit and drawbacks of the currently available electricity supply options and allows evaluation of alternative energy futures. The simulation game will provide a perspective on the anticipated performance of energy systems, leading to a better understanding of feasible energy scenarios associated investment efforts and overall societal impacts.