A starting point for this course is that to understand energy system in the society one must regard them as socio-technical systems that in addition to the technical components also consist of organisations that build, run and maintain them and of institutional frames in the form of formal and informal regulatory frameworks for what different actors may and not may make. These regulatory frameworks influence in turn structures of ownership and organizational forms. The socio-technical design of energy system differs considerably between different countries. For example the USA energy system has often been controlled by private companies while municipal and government funded companies have played an emerging role in many European countries. It differs also between different energy systems within a country, and change over time. In many countries, a so called deregulation of important energy systems has been carried out during the two latest decades.
The aim of the course is to teach the students to analyse energy systems as socio-technical systems, how they have been established, developed and changed in the past and how they may be changed in the future. The Swedish innovation system within the energy field will be analysed particularly. Also the interplay between energy systems in the form of both competition and cooperation will be analysed.
Many energy systems have had a transnational nature and large emphasis will also places on the entanglement and the coordintaion over nation borders. Further, geopolitical consequences of transnational energy systems will be studied, for example the conflicts around Europe's gas supply and its depending on Russian (earlier Soviet) gas delivery.
An additional aim is to analyse energy systems at the local level and not least how the energy is use, particularly in household, has changed over time.