Model-based energy scenarios are a widely used tool for supporting economic and political decision makers. The results of energy modeling and the conclusions deduced therefrom, however, depend on the model input data derived from framework assumptions about future developments in the embedding society, which are deeply uncertain in the long term. The challenge to deal with this 'context uncertainty' in a systematic and comprehensive manner has only recently started to attract intensified attention in energy research; the search for appropriate methods is ongoing. This paper proposes a new concept for the construction of socio-technical energy scenarios, which combines familiar environmental modeling approaches with new developments in qualitative scenario methodology, and demonstrates the possible application of the concept in model-based energy scenario construction. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.