Renewable energy in Tourism regions (ReTour) - Modelling

Increasing the share of energy produced from renewable sources is a major cornerstone of the Austrian renewable energy action plan. The resulting need for additional renewable energy production and the accompanying necessity of having to reconfigure the energy system, is nothing short of complex challenges that need to be overcome. The transdisciplinary research project proposed here aims to better understand – both from a technical but equally a human perspective – viable future renewable energy scenarios focusing on wind power and photovoltaics (PV) on a regional level in a case study approach. The proposed project bundles efforts from economists, environmental psychologists, geographers, landscape planners, and political scientists, applying a multidisciplinary and interlinked, thus transdisciplinary, mix of methods including, spatially explicit modelling of renewable energy potentials, qualitative analyses of focus groups, using a participatory modelling approach, visualization studies and virtual reality assessments of renewable energy technology solutions, conjoint analysis and other statistical analysis of survey data. The modelling work package will provide spatially explicit, economic simulation tools to derive regional wind and PV potentials. These results will be used to identify three to four case study regions in accordance with the advisory stakeholder group and to support collaboration and interactive visualisations during the laboratories in work package 3.