Social Need versus Local Opposition: Simulating Energy Infrastructure Siting Outcomes Using a Multi-Agent Decision Support System

Siting new energy infrastructure projects to meet growing demand is becoming increasingly contentious and costly. This paper explicates the design and results of the Sustainable Energy Modeling Program (SEMPro), a decision support system for energy infrastructure siting. SEMPro makes two contributions to planning decision support: first, SEMPro fuses geographical information system data with a multi agent-based model (ABM) of citizen attitude and behavior diffusion, a powerful tool in predicting the outcome of planning decisions and explaining emergent opposition behavior. Second, it is the only planning model we are aware of that integrates an ABM with spatial bargaining models of stakeholder and regulatory decision making to simulate the real world complexity of infrastructure siting. Using a high voltage transmission line project in California for model development and validation, we find emergent citizen interactions affects stakeholder and regulator decision making in siting processes. Monte Carlo simulations show that higher levels of project disruption result in a greater number of citizen comments sent to regulators. These messages have a greater impact on the preferences of regulators simulated in the spatial bargaining module than they do on stakeholder preferences. Stakeholder preferences are strongly influenced by the community based organizations that arise to oppose the project. We also find that risk communication efforts by project proponents need to be carefully tailored to the attributes of the project and the impacted communities. This research was partially supported by an educational grant from Edison International.