Diese Doktorarbeit untersucht die Rolle die Bürgerinitiativen an der Schnittstelle zwischen städtischen und digitalen Räumen spielen können. Sie folgt drei Untersuchungslinien. Zunächst wird untersucht, wie die Forschung zu aus Graswurzelbewegungen entstandenen Alternativen für nachhaltige und gerechte Städte von einer besonderen Art des digitalen Gemeinguts profitieren kann: des kollaborativen kartografischen Mappings. Zweitens wird die Verflechtung von digitalen Gemeingütern mit physischen städtischen Gemeingütern untersucht, um zu verstehen, wie die gemeinsame Nutzung zu transformativen Effekten in der Stadt führen kann. Drittens wird versucht, das transformative Potenzial der Gemeingüter als ein Narrativ des Wandels für nachhaltige und gerechte Städte im digitalen Zeitalter zu bewerten. Methodisch stützt die Arbeit sich auf Aktionsforschung, primäre Einzelfallstudien sowie eine vergleichende Fallstudienanalyse. Ein vorläufiges Ergebnis ist die Identifizierung von basisgeleiteten kollaborativen Mappings – hier betrachtet als Initiativen des gemeinsamen Wirkens (Commoning) – als wertvolle Wissensquellen zu alternativer Stadtökonomik. Die Hauptergebnisse zwingen uns dazu, das klassisch-naturalistische Verständnis des Gemeinguts in Frage zu stellen, welches dazu neigt, ein Gemeingut als gegeben zu betrachten. Stattdessen wäre es für die Forschung von Vorteil, einen gemeinsamen Prozess zu untersuchen: die Rückgewinnung, Schaffung und Nutzung gemeinsamer städtischer Ressourcen. Über die künstliche Trennung zwischen materiellen und immateriellen Facetten des Gemeingutes hinaus lässt sich (urbanes) Commoning am besten als eine relationale Praxis in Pflege und Aufbau von Partnerschaften für die Reproduktion von Leben in der Stadt definieren. Dies ist umso wichtiger, dass digitale Werkzeuge zwar neue Potenziale eröffnen können, aber im Gegensatz zu anderen Diskursen (Sharing Economy, Smart Cities) für das Commoning der Stadt nicht von zentraler Bedeutung sind. / This doctoral research investigates the role that citizen-driven initiatives can play at the intersection of the urban and digital spaces. It follows three lines of investigation. First, it explores how research about grassroots alternatives for sustainable and just cities may benefit from a particular type of digital commons: collaborative cartographic mappings. Second, it investigates the intertwin of digital commons with physical urban commons to understand how commoning may lead to transformative impacts in the city. Third, it seeks to evaluate the transformative potential of the commons as a narrative of change for sustainable and just cities in the digital age. Methodologically, it relies on action research, primary individual case-studies as well as a comparative case-study analysis. A preliminary result is the identification of grassroots-led collaborative mappings – seen as commoning initiatives – as valuable sources of knowledge about alternative urban economies. Main results compel us to question the classical/naturalist understanding of the commons that tends to consider it as a given. Instead, research would benefit to investigate a commoning process: the reclaiming creation, and use of shared urban resources. And, further, transcending artificial divides between the tangible and intangible facets of the commons, (urban) commoning is best defined as a relational practice of caring for and building partnerships for the reproduction of life in the city. This is all the more important that another significant result of the present work is that, while they may open new potential, digital tools are not central to commoning the city, in contrast other discourses (Sharing Economy, Smart Cities). Epistemologically, the author recommends aligning the effort of researching urban commoning to the Diverse/Community Economies research agenda which calls for performative studies of more-than-human urban commoning-communities.

We have dealt with the problem arising from the incongruity between the evolution of the electricity system for meeting the objectives of economic growth, and the human/societal requirements of inclusive and affordable development, and environmental compliance, within the purview of sustainability. We conceive and define the concept of sustainability in the context of national electricity system and adopt an indicator-based hierarchical framework to assess, measure and track its sustainability. The approach necessitates prioritization, quantification and aggregation of multi-dimensional indicators of sustainability. We evaluate the Indian electricity system using this framework by benchmarking the actual dimensional indicator values against upper and lower threshold levels to compute a national electricity system sustainability index (NESSI) for India. The estimated NESSI value for India in 2013 is a low 0.377 (benchmark value is 1), which suggest that India has a substantial sustainability gap to bridge. The approach and the results imply that India or any other emerging/developing country needs to have a serious relook at (i) the goals and targets set for the electricity system, (ii) the set of prioritized technology and policy interventions, and (iii) the models and approaches adopted for strategic electricity planning. The findings from our research clearly indicate that countries like India need to adopt “minimizing sustainability gap” rather than “increasing GDP growth” as the sole criterion for deciding about the challenges raised above for the electricity system. We strongly believe that this approach will not only meet the economic development objective set for the electricity system but also help achieving the societal aspirations as well as environmental compliance. We establish that Indian electricity system is poised for an imminent transition into a sustainable system. What constitutes the inputs, the processes and the outcomes of this transition are of immense interest and have been widely debated in the literature. We motivate and implement an electricity system generation expansion model with multi-attribute technology characterization to model the sustainability transition of electricity system and understand the feasibility, cost and carbon emission implications of generation augmentation. We build on the state of the art resource and technology characterization. We obtain the expansion planning requirements for Indian electricity system by superimposing the projected incremental increase in demand with the retirement schedule. Further, building on the recent advances in power system modelling, we formulate the electricity system transition problem as a grouped integer generation scheduling and generation expansion planning model. This formulation accounts for plant startups, minimum loads, operating reserves, ramping limits and plant life. We run multiple experiments by varying the system configurations for a planning horizon of 18 years till 2032 and characterize the system on select indicators under three dimensions of sustainability for each year. Within the select scenarios, NESSI value in the terminal year varies from 0.481 to 0.51 relative to the base year value of 0.377.We throw some light on how the important questions concerning technology pathways for electricity system sustainability transition can be queried. The approach adopted for this research is two pronged. First is to formulate and subsequently answer the question: What is and what should be the electricity system of India? The second is to answer: what are the prospects for transition of electricity system into a sustainable state? How do probable technology pathways manifest in terms of national electricity system? Can renewable energy deliver? Our proposition –which we validate through this research – is to formulate and subsequently answer the questions in two phases. The two phases are briefly detailed below: In the first phase, the question we have attempted to first formulate and subsequently answer is: what is and what should be the electricity system for India? We propose to employ an indicator based approach for this part of the research, which attempts to evaluate India’s electricity system using the sustainability framework. The analysis of the indicators belonging to economic, social, environmental and institutional dimensions of sustainability will provide a deeper understanding of the system, identify and quantify the prevailing sustainability gaps and develop specific targets for interventions. We begin with a survey of literature in the domain of sustainability assessment. We identify and briefly discuss the essential concepts, ideas and methods used in sustainability assessment. We observe the emergence of electricity related concerns in the wider sustainability discourse. Next, we survey the literature on electricity systems and discuss the intersection of energy systems with development. Than we define the sustainable national electricity system and bring out the synergies between measurement of sustainable development and assessment of objectives of electricity systems. We observe cross country variations in electricity system planning objectives. While focus for developed nations has historically been economic and has subsequently included environmental concerns of climate change and pollution. In addition to economic and environmental aspects, the low levels of access as well as consumption are a reality for India and other developing nations. This adds another dimension to the status assessment and subsequent planning of national electricity system of India. Synthesis of sustainability assessment and objectives of electricity system planning in this phase culminates with conception and evaluation of National Electricity System Sustainability Index (NESSI) for India. The underlying theme throughout this phase is our attempt to first formulate and subsequently answer: What is and what should be the electricity system for India? In the second phase, a modeling approach has been developed to optimally prioritize the interventions (energy-technology supply chains) in response to the specific targets (from Phase 1) for planning a sustainable electricity system for India. All the possible supply chain interventions tracking the transitions from energy resources to electricity in the bus bar on grid (as modeled by a Reference Energy System) form the inputs for the mathematical model. The output is the optimal set of interventions as trade-off solutions, which meet the targets set by the sustainability goal. The criteria like cost, efficiency of transformation, emission coefficients and energy resource availability form the basis for developing the optimal plan. We begin this phase with survey of literature on power system modelling. Electricity system planning has been undertaken in academic and planning domains for several decades. It is only recent that, driven by the imminent challenges of de-carbonization, affordability, equity and security- which has resulted in coevolution of several possible technological, behavioral and policy intervention proposals-there is demand for coherent assessment of these propositions for electricity system transition. In our work, we have focused on supply side technology interventions. Supply side technology intervention propositions for electricity system transition more often than not involve variable renewable energy, i.e., solar and wind. Variable renewable energy technologies pose significant modelling challenges because of their characteristic intermittency which induces complex dynamics in the complimentary system, i.e., electricity generating technologies other than renewable energy. We identify tremendous activity in the domain of electricity system modelling with focus on model representation of electricity system constituents which has significant implications for the outcomes of the planning exercises undertaken with these models. Literature synthesis in this phase culminates with our attempt at mathematical modelling of generation technology pathways for electricity system in transition. Undertaking this exercise has involved preparation of model feeds: energy resource supply profiles, generation technology specifications and demand projections. We have done a series of numerical experiments to establish validity of the model. Subsequently we have validated various scenarios for Indian electricity system representing different levels of transitions, which provides insights which we expect will be useful for the stakeholders. The underlying theme throughout this phase is our attempt to answer the questions: How does one understand electricity system transition? How do electricity generating technologies interact amongst each other to yield certain set of system outputs? Can renewable energy deliver? In our pursuit of finding answers to several questions raised at various points in this thesis and alluded to above, we have done a systematic systemic diagnosis of Indian electricity system. We have developed a multi-dimensional and multi-hierarchical indicator based framework to measure national electricity system sustainability. We have assessed Indian electricity system with this framework, to understand if Indian electricity system is sustainable and how it can transition towards a more sustainable state. Based on this understanding, we have investigated electricity generation technology pathways for a transitioning electricity system. We have modelled India as a single region with aggregate temporal profiles of resource availability and hourly loads. Building on the recent literature on power system modelling and their application, this thesis is a systematic exposition of how the important questions of supply side technology portfolio concerning electricity system sustainability transition can be queried. The results are based on several instances of data inputs. Main contributions from our work are: 1. Introducing the concept of sustainability of national electricity system and defining it comprehensively for the first time. 2. Conceptualizing, developing and validating a multi-dimensional and multi-hierarchical indicator-based framework for assessing and benchmarking national electricity system sustainability. This framework is generalizable and applicable to the electricity systems of all the countries for assessing the sustainability status. 3. A composite measure of National Electricity System Sustainability Index (NESSI), which can be used to identify and quantify prevailing sustainability gaps in the national electricity system and provide a goal for sustainability transition of the electricity system through higher NESSI target values. The constituents (dimensions, themes and indicators) of NESSI can enable identification of interventions and fixing of targets for such a transition. 4. Conceptualized, developed and validated an integrated mathematical model of generation expansion planning (supply augmentation) and generation scheduling with extensive operational details for electricity system in transition. This included: Enumeration and characterization of reference electricity system (energy resources, electricity generating technologies and demand for electricity). Demand profiling which involved estimating annual peak demand and demand for electricity, consideration of annual retiring capacity and computation of representative demand profiles (load curves) for past and future years using time-series load data. Modelling variable renewable energy (wind, solar and hydro) by developing representative energy resource availability profiles using time-series data. Harmonizing the extracted temporal energy resource availability and load profiles to preserve the chronological correlations. Explicit modelling of capacity utilization by proposing and implementing unit profile inversion. Effectively, it implies that generation from the variable generation capacity, e.g., solar capacity is upper bounded by the representative profile corresponding to that capacity. Optimally selected generation technology interventions for planning sustainable electricity system for India under select scenarios. 5. Juxtaposition of indicator-based macro model of electricity system sustainability assessment with bottom-up mathematical model of generation expansion planning and generation scheduling to evaluate official Indian scenarios of electricity system planning for sustainability transition. In summary, we have developed and demonstrated an empirical instance of an integrated methodology, beginning from a systematic diagnosis of the national electricity system to a meaningful solution. Through this thesis, we have attempted to understand the alternate future electricity supply transitions, their implications for society and environment and how they are influenced by the planning decisions. In conclusion, there is substantial activity in all stakeholder domains: research activity, actions by NGOs and the government but given the long term nature of probable interventions, sustained efforts will be required to reach the desired outcomes. Future of grid is the biggest system level problem, which we believe we have illuminated to some extent and which could benefit from further research. While planning exercises using complex models are useful in their own right given the complexities of real world close monitoring and scrutiny of the evolving electricity system and timely course corrections will be critical

A fundamental change in societal values and economic structures is required to address increasing pressures on ecosystems and natural resources. Transition research has developed in the last decades to analyze the co-dynamics of technological, institutional, social and economic elements in the provision of key functions such as energy, water and food supply. This doctoral dissertation provides conceptual and methodological contributions to the pro-active governance of sustainability transitions. Three research gaps are identified that are addressed in this dissertation. First, a comprehensive conceptualization of learning in sustainability transitions is currently missing that comprises learning at multiple societal levels (ranging from individuals to policy-actors). Learning concepts are often not explicitly discussed in transition research even though learning is considered as fundamental for innovation processes, niche formation and development as well as breakthrough and diffusion of innovations. Second, methods for the analysis and design of transition governance processes are lacking that specify case-specific intervention points and roles of actors in the implementation of innovations. Third, participatory modeling approaches are only applied to a limited extent in transition research despite a high potential for supporting communication and learning. The conceptualization of multi-level learning developed in this doctoral research conceptualizes learning at different societal levels as specific learning contexts ranging from individual and group contexts to organizational and policy contexts. The conceptual framework further differentiates between learning processes, intensity, objects, outcomes, subjects and factors, allowing for a more detailed analysis of learning within and across learning contexts. Thus, learning contexts can be linked by processes that involve actors from different learning contexts (e.g., community groups and policy-makers), as well as exchanges of physical aspects, institutions and knowledge (in the form of ‘learning factors’). This research has also provided a classification of model uses in transition research that supports a purposeful discussion of the opportunities of modeling and promising future research directions. The methodology developed in this doctoral research aims at the analysis and design of transition governance processes by specifying the various opportunities to contribute to sustainability transitions through purposeful action at different societal levels, as well as related roles of stakeholders in implementing such processes of change. The methodology combines different streams of previous research: 1) a participatory modeling approach to identify problem perceptions, case-specific sustainability innovations as well as related implementation barriers, drivers and responsibilities; 2) a systematic review to identify supportive and impeding learning factors from the general literature that can complement case-specific factors; and 3) a method for the analysis and design of case-specific transition governance processes. Three case studies in Canada (topic: sustainable food systems), Cyprus (water-energy-food nexus) and Germany (sustainable heating supply) have been selected to test and iteratively develop the methodology described above. The results for each case study reveal that there are learning objects (i.e., learning requirements) in all learning contexts, which underscores the importance of multi-level learning in sustainability transitions, ranging from the individual to the group, organizational and policy levels. Actors have various opportunities to actively facilitate societal transformations towards sustainable development either directly through actions at their particular societal levels (i.e., context-internal learning) or indirectly through actions that influence learning at other societal levels. In fact, most of the learning factors require cooperation across learning contexts during the implementation process. The comparing of learning factors across case studies underline the importance of several factor categories, such as ‘physical a ‘disturbance or crisis’, ‘information and knowledge’. Of the 206 factors identified by stakeholders, 40 factors are case-specific and not contained in the general, review-based factor list. This underscores the value of participatory research, as general, top-down analyses might have overlooked these case-specific factors. The methodology presented in this dissertation allows for the identification and analysis of case-specific intervention points for sustainability transitions at multiple societal levels. The methodology furthermore permits the analysis of interplay between individual, group, organizational and policy actions, which is a first step towards their coordination. The focus on sustainability innovations links the broad topic of sustainability transitions to a set of opportunities for practical interventions and overcoming their implementation barriers. The methodology presented allows for the analysis and design of these interlinkages between learning contexts. While the methodology cannot provide any ‘silver bullets’ for inducing sustainability transitions, it is flexible enough to identify an appropriate abstraction level for analyzing and designing transition governance processes. The methodology developed in this doctoral research also provides several contributions for the development of participatory modeling methods in transition research. Thus, the participatory method supports an integrated analysis of barriers and drivers of sustainability innovations, and allows application in practice and education. The concepts and methods developed in this research project allow for reflection on transition governance processes from a systemic viewpoint. Experiences in the case studies underline the applicability of the concepts and methods developed for the analysis of case-specific transition governance processes. Despite substantial differences in the geographic location, culture and topics addressed, all case studies include promising sustainability innovations and the engagement of multiple actors in their implementation. The diversity and multitude of initiatives in the case study regions provides an optimistic outlook on future opportunities for large-scale sustainability transitions.