Hybrid Modeling: New Answers to Old Challenges Introduction to the Special Issue of The Energy Journal

TLDR

Energy‑economy modeling has long been divided between top‑down and bottom‑up approaches, but since the mid‑1990s these camps have engaged in dialogue that has produced hybrid methods. The authors sought to systematically assess the prospects and challenges of hybrid modeling by convening a workshop. The workshop, held in Paris on April 20‑21 2005, brought together several research teams to share and compare the strategies and techniques they had applied to hybrid modeling. The resulting special issue documents the workshop findings and the follow‑up exchanges among researchers.

Abstract

After nearly two decades of debate and fundamental disagreement, top-down and bottom-up energy-economy modelers, sometimes referred to as modeling ‘tribes’, began to engage in productive dialogue in the mid-1990s (IPCC 2001). From this methodological conversation have emerged modeling approaches that offer a hybrid of the two perspectives. Yet, while individual publications over the past decade have described efforts at hybrid modeling, there has not as yet been a systematic assessment of their prospects and challenges. To this end, several research teams that explore hybrid modeling held a workshop in Paris on April 20-21, 2005 to share and compare the strategies and techniques that each has applied to the development of hybrid modeling. This special issue provides the results of the workshop and of follow-up efforts between different researchers to exchange ideas.