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Reconciling qualitative storylines and quantitative descriptions: an iterative approach

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posted on 2017-03-23, 13:44 authored by Elizabeth M. Robertson, Aine O'Grady, John BartonJohn Barton, Stuart Galloway, Damiete Emmanuel-Yusuf, Matthew Leach, Geoffrey P. Hammond, Murray ThomsonMurray Thomson, Timothy J. Foxon
Energy system transition research has been experimenting with the integration of qualitative and quantitative analysis due to the increased articulation it provides. Current approaches tend to be heavily biased by qualitative or quantitative methodologies, and more often are aimed toward a single academic discipline. This paper proposes an interdisciplinary methodology for the elaboration of energy system socio-technical scenarios, applied here to the low carbon transition of the UK. An iterative approach was used to produce quantitative descriptions of the UK's energy transition out to 2050, building on qualitative storylines or narratives that had been developed through the formal application of a transition pathways approach. The combination of the qualitative and quantitative analysis in this way subsequently formed the cornerstone of wider interdisciplinary research, helping to harmonise assumptions, and facilitating ‘whole systems’ thinking. The methodology pulls on niche expertise of contributors to map and investigate the governance and technological landscape of a system change. Initial inconsistencies were found between energy supply and demand and addressed, the treatment of gas generation, capacity factors, total installed generating capacity and installation rates of renewables employed. Knowledge gaps relating to the operation of combined heat and power, sources of waste heat and future fuel sources were also investigated. Adopting the methodological approach to integrate qualitative and quantitative analysis resulted in a far more comprehensive elaboration than previously, providing a stronger basis for wider research, and for deducing more robust insights for decision-making. It is asserted that this formal process helps build robust future scenarios not only for socio political storylines but also for the quantification of any qualitative storyline.

Funding

This work was conducted as a part of the Realising Transition Pathways project, supported by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (Grant EP/K005316/1).

History

School

  • Mechanical, Electrical and Manufacturing Engineering

Research Unit

  • Centre for Renewable Energy Systems Technology (CREST)

Published in

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

Volume

118

Pages

293-306

Citation

ROBERTSON, E. ...et al., 2017. Reconciling qualitative storylines and quantitative descriptions: an iterative approach. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 118 (May 2017), pp. 293-306.

Publisher

© The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Acceptance date

2017-02-26

Publication date

2017-03-15

Copyright date

2017

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Elsevier under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

ISSN

0040-1625

Language

  • en

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