EME Pathfinder Project

 

EME - "Energy turns" in companies: the STAWAG supply networks between changing energy options and long-term investment decisions, 1838 to 2013 (Professor Thomes)

The project is to analyze ultra-long investments, using the example of supply networks. Drawing on selected historical case studies, decision processes are evaluated by analyzing their impacts and effects.

Due to their complex history since the mid 19th century, the supply networks of the local energy supplier STAWG offer themselves as suitable object of investigation. Energy suppliers have always been confronted with systemic decisions with significant societal and ecological long-term impacts.

Conducted by the EME Research Area at the RWTH School of Business and Economics, such an historically oriented technological assessment makes it possible more clearly to define ultra-long investments as object of investigation and to identify suitable research fields. At the same time, the project helps to optimize company processes by raising awareness for critical scenarios and identifying path dependencies and lock-in phenomena.