The Infrastructure and Transport Planning chair (IMP) is part of the EECON-Lab at theEnergy Innovation Centre (EIZ). The EECON-Lab investigates the economic and societal implications of the energy transition. The IMP focuses on the impact of this transformation in the transport, electricity and heating sectors on private households.

The focus is on the question of what costs the energy and transport transitions entail for private households and how households make their investment and usage decisions under changing technological, economic and political conditions.

To this end, a nationwide household survey is first being carried out, with an additional sample in Lusatia. The survey captures the costs, investments and usage behaviour of private households. The data is used to identify key factors influencing household decisions as well as regional differences.

On this basis, the chair is developing the agent-based model HEMCATE (‘Household Energy & Mobility Costs Agent-based Transition Evaluation’), which models costs, usage behaviour, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions at the household level.

In addition, laboratory experiments, expert interviews, focus groups and a stakeholder workshop are being used to investigate how households will react to future changes, for example in energy prices, subsidy conditions and technology costs. The findings are incorporated into HEMCATE, enabling the simulation of future investment and usage pathways as well as the evaluation of different transformation and policy scenarios.