Fun with Pajek

I’m working on the conclusion chapter of my thesis at the moment. It’s meant to sum up the results presented in earlier chapters and then discuss wider questions in the literature and for policy. There are a couple ideas I’m working on, such as an ideal tariff for microgenerators and clarifying PV’s place within the context of other household energy conservation measures, but a basic concern is sorting out how PV households interact with other stakeholders within the PV industry.

I wasn’t really sure how to start answering this question until a friend told me about Pajek. It’s a bit of software that can be used to analyse large social networks and it will perform all sorts of calculations. The options can be a bit confusing though so I thought I’d start simple. I entered some data from my interviews and you can see the resulting plot below. The size of the dots represents the ability of each node to control the network (inverse of dyadic constraint if you’re interested).

This is only a first draft but reassuringly, some basic things like a strong connection between PV households, electricity suppliers and PV installers can be seen. It also seems to show that the DTI and Ofgem play a major role behind the scenes, framing the interactions of other stakeholders. This came out of the interviews as well but the advantage of the network graph is that it’s immediately clear that there is no direct link between households and these government agencies. So, for example, if we want PV households to become more active participants in the electricity network – i.e. exporting electricity at times when it’s good for the grid or generally reducing demand – then the graph suggests that perhaps a link between DTI, Ofgem and the households needs to be built. This might be achieved by developing a pilot programme with innovative metering and monitoring technologies, working in conjunction with the electricity suppliers and PV installers. As it happens, there has actually been talk of doing just that!

That’s a pretty rough sketch of course but I’m keen to play with Pajek a bit more and see what I else I might be able to find out.