Ecostan is an agent based model of a country in the not too distant future using sustainable energy. It models an electricity grid with energy from wind and solar and how it works together with a neighborhood adopting electric vehicles, heat pumps, solar panels, solar boilers, inductive cooking and insulation. It is an initiative of the TU/e, Elaad and Alliander. It is modeled in GAMA, an agent based modelling platform comparable to NetLogo but more robust and mature. It has the goal to make it easy and quick to explore and compare what-if scenario’s for the energy transition.

You will generate the Ecostan virtual neighborhood with houses, parking spaces, roads and an electricity grid. You will choose a number of “typical” neighborhoods: e.g. city center, suburban and rural. You will then determine the typical values and their range for parameters that characterize the neighborhood. E.g. division in terms of area between dwellings, roads and public parking. Or dwelling type with rooftop area (for solar) and parking space (for EV’s). Finally you will then research how these parameters can be translated into the generation of example neighborhoods using GAMA and how “realistic” experts deem the result to be. Depending on how ambitious we work out this assignment it could be both an internship and master thesis.

To be able to take on this challenge you need to be interested in urban planning. You must also be willing and able to learn the agent based modeling language GAML. Your work location will be either at the university or at Elaad in Arnhem. We will reimburse 500 euro a month and travel costs.