Dr. Caroline Krejci from the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington will present a Seminar this Monday, October 22, at 1:00pm in Nedderman Hall (NH) 105. Dr. Krejci’s presentation title, abstract, and biographical sketch are below.
Title: Modeling Consumer Adoption Decisions in Residential Renewable Energy Systems: An Agent-based Approach
Author: Caroline Krejci, PhD
Location: Nedderman Hall Room 105
Date: Monday, October 22, 2018
Time: 1:00pm
Abstract: The electricity market in the U.S. is beginning to transition from a utility-side centralized generation-distribution model to a customer-side distributed generation model. Residential consumers have demonstrated a growing interest in solar-based electricity, which has resulted in increased adoption of distributed solar on the rooftops of owner-occupied residences over the last decade. However, increased rooftop photovoltaic (PV) adoption has reduced utility companies’ revenues, leading them to change their policies to discourage rooftop PV adoption. Furthermore, the ability to install rooftop PV systems is limited to households with sufficient income and appropriate roof structure, which has led to equity concerns among policymakers. To address these issues, a system-level approach is required. This paper describes an agent-based model that was designed to study consumer adoption behavior for different renewable energy models and the resulting impacts on stakeholder objectives. In this model, consumer agents in an urban neighborhood decide in each time-step whether they will adopt a particular renewable energy model, based on their own heterogeneous preferences and interactions with other agents. Simulation results demonstrate the interdependencies of different renewable energy programs and the value of considering multiple stakeholder objectives when designing residential renewable energy systems.
Biographical Sketch: Dr. Caroline Krejci is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington. She worked as an industrial engineer for UPS and as an operations engineer for Lutron Electronics before earning a Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from the University of Washington in 2013. Prior to joining UT Arlington, she was an Assistant Professor at Iowa State University. Dr. Krejci’s research interests are focused on the development of quantitative methodologies for the analysis and management of sociotechnical systems. She specializes in modeling supply networks as complex adaptive systems, which enables the realistic representation of network participants as autonomous and heterogeneous agents that are capable of complex planning, decision making, interactions, and adaptations in a dynamic environment. Such complex systems often exhibit unpredictable and nonlinear behavior, which can be captured through the use of agent-based modeling techniques. Dr. Krejci is particularly interested in using these techniques to explore the implications of different management policies on long-term social, environmental, and economic system sustainability.
–Posted by Jay Rosenberger
Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering (IMSE) Department 