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Modeling the Sociotechnical Dimensions of Urban Resilience: Community‐level Microgrids
Author(s) -
McDermott Tom,
Nadolski Molly,
Duncan Dorraine,
Clowse Madeline
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
incose international symposium
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2334-5837
DOI - 10.1002/j.2334-5837.2018.00513.x
Subject(s) - sociotechnical system , stakeholder , resilience (materials science) , community resilience , environmental economics , sustainability , risk analysis (engineering) , computer science , business , management science , engineering , economics , knowledge management , thermodynamics , operating system , physics , ecology , management , redundancy (engineering) , biology
INCOSE Vision 2025 states an imperative to apply systems engineering to help shape policy in relation to social systems and identifies a number of societal grand challenges, including energy security and sustainability. The document further states a future where “the addition of a formal systems approach helps decision‐makers to select cost effective, safe, and sustainable policies that are more broadly embraced by the stakeholder community.” (INCOSE, 2014) This paper discusses a series of models that combine technical aspects of urban community microgrids with economic and policy drivers. Together these efforts explore systems engineering methods that capture a social systems approach to technology driven trades. Specifically this work discusses models that allow stakeholders to analyze the impacts of the implementation of a community‐level microgrids on the energy burden of residents (a social variable). Microgrids have been proven to provide resilience for communities during shocks to the electrical system, such has hurricanes and grid‐wide black outs; however, better understanding is needed on the actual impact of microgrids on the energy burden of community residents. While this research explores whether or not the benefits of microgrids can extend to the household level by assessing their impacts on the cost of energy, the goal is to provide a policy model which will act as a valuable decision aid for future, more sustainable and resilient, energy infrastructure policy. Initial research indicates that community scale microgrids with attachment to a central urban grid are economically feasible and can benefit community resilience, but Atlanta specific policy constraints related to regulated utilities must overcome. Our work interprets all the economic, policy and social elements as an essential set of factors operating in a dynamic ecosystem.