To reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 80% below 1990 levels by 2050, an energy transition is taking place in the European Union. Achieving these targets requires changes in the heating and cooling sector (H&C). Designing and implementing this energy transition is not trivial, as technology, actors, and institutions interact in complex ways. We provide an illustrative example of the development and use of an agent-based model (ABM) for thermal energy transitions in the built environment, from the perspective of sociotechnical systems (STS) and complex adaptive systems (CAS). In our illustrative example, we studied the transition of a simplified residential neighborhood to heating without natural gas. We used the ABM to explore socioeconomic conditions that could support the neighborhoods’ transition over 20 years while meeting the neighborhoods’ heat demand. Our illustrative example showed that through the use of STS, CAS, and an ABM, we can account for technology, actors, institutions, and their interactions while designing for thermal energy transitions in the built environment.

The EU has set ambitious targets for an energy transition. While research often focuses on technology, institutions or actors, a transition requires complex coordination and comprehensive analysis and design. We propose a framework accounting for technology, institutions and actors’ perspective to design in socio-technical systems. We present its application, firstly, to biodiesel production in Germany; secondly, to vehicle-to-grid contracts in a Car as a Power Plant microgrid. We show how using the framework as the core in modelling can contribute to the performance improvement of these systems. Future work will elaborate on the next generation of thermal energy systems, coordination control of microgrids and implementing flexibility through demand response aggregation. Overall, designing solutions to the problems described calls for comprehensive engineers who look beyond the technical design and deal with multi actor socio-political processes including institutional consideration.