Detailed project description

Funding:
Volkswagen Foundation, Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony
(funding program "Science for Sustainable Development")

Project Duration: 2015 - 2019

Coordination: Prof. Dr. Lutz Hofmann, University of Hannover

Participation from the Faculty of Economic Sciences:
Prof. Dr. Jutta Geldermann, Chair of Production and Logistics, University of Göttingen

Other Project Partners:

• Prof. Dr. Michael Sonnenschein, OFFIS, Institute for Information Technology
• Jun.-Prof. Dr. Sebastian Lehnhoff, Prof. Niko Paech, University of Oldenburg
• Prof. Dr. Bernd Engel, Prof. Dr. Frank Eggert, University of Braunschweig
• Jun.-Prof. Dr. Michael Hübler, University of Hannover

Description:
The aim of this research project is the development of technically feasible pathways towards a sustainable power supply based on renewable energies in Lower Saxony.
At the start of the project, sustainability criteria as well as other parameters of the future power system in the year 2050 will be determined together with a variety of stakeholders from politics, society, industry and the user community. For this purpose a public symposium will be organized.
The project considers a power supply system as sustainable if all sustainability criteria are met and the interest of current and future generations is considered. This includes the condition of the environement in Lower Saxony, the use of natural ressources as well as the socioeconomic impact and social acceptance of the future system. Furthermore, the power supply system has to be reliable and technically feasible.
The best implementation pathway will be determined by means of multicriteria decision analysis to compare the different scenarios with respect to the technical, social, ecological and economic parameters. Furthermore, the project focuses on the identification and analysis of interactions between the different models for the four types of parameters. To achieve this, the project team consists of scientists from different disciplines and stakeholders will participate in the development of sustainability criteria. Thus, the research of this project will have a broader focus than previous studies considering only techno-economic criteria.
Finally, the project aims to identify one possible pathway to implement a sustainable power supply system in Lower Saxony in 2050. The identified pathway should be consistent with the determined criteria.

Link Homepage: https://www.neds-niedersachsen.de/