Drivers and Ideal Types towards Energy Transition: Anticipating the Futures Scenarios of OECD Countries.

Taewook Huh,I Re Chung,Kee-Young Yoon

doi:10.3390/ijerph16081441

Abstract

This study aims to identify the ideal types of energy transition of the thirty-five Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries and to explore their implications using the fuzzy-set ideal type analysis. It then anticipates the futures scenarios of OECD member countries towards energy transition by placing the ideal type results. In particular, looking at the possibility of the futures towards energy transition, this study attempts to set up the comprehensive measurement framework of energy transition embracing the three key drivers (energy system (E), energy citizenship (S), and digital technology (T)). As a result, the eight OECD countries, including Denmark (fuzzy score 0.889), UK (0.800), and Norway (0.788) belonging to Type 1 (E*S*T) with the all high features of three key drivers, are expected to have ‘Outlier (super-potent) Futures’ of energy transition. The twelve countries of Type 2 (E*S*t), 3 (E*s*T), and 5 (e*S*T) with two high features of three ones will belong to the ‘Best (reformative) Futures’. The five countries of Type 4 (E*s*t), 6 (e*S*t), and 7 (e*s*T) with one high feature among three ones will be located in ‘Business-As-Usual Futures’. Finally, the ten countries, including Hungary (fuzzy score 0.881), Greece (0.716), Israel (0.679) belonging to Type 8 (e*s*t) with all three low features, are expected to have ‘Worst (declined) Futures’ of energy transition.

Highlights

In recent years, various efforts have been made to expand policies aimed at transitioning to sustainable systems, since there is a perception that the current socio-technical system is unsustainable as it uses enormous amounts of energy and emits carbon dioxide in the atmosphere [1,2,3]
The transition that the socio-technical system theory focuses on refers to a gradual and continuous structural transition process, which takes place in a given social system for more than one generation, and this transition is fundamentally based on multi-level perspectives and trans-disciplinary approach [8,9]
Based upon the Schwartz’s futures scenario theory, this study suggests the following four futures scenarios: ‘the worst’ scenarios where all three key drivers of energy transition are fragile; ‘business-as-usual’ (BAU) scenarios for the continuation of the current trend of energy transition; ‘the best’ scenarios in which two of the key drivers of the energy transition arranged and appear positive; and ‘the outlier’ where all of the three drivers are jointly arranged and appear far more innovative than current situations

Summary

Introduction

Various efforts have been made to expand policies aimed at transitioning to sustainable systems, since there is a perception that the current socio-technical system is unsustainable as it uses enormous amounts of energy and emits carbon dioxide in the atmosphere [1,2,3]. The Dutch government has introduced the system transformation strategy called ‘Energy Transition’ to a sustainable society in order to address new energy technologies and the changes in social systems where those technologies are produced and utilized [6,7]. The transition that the socio-technical system theory focuses on refers to a gradual and continuous structural transition process, which takes place in a given social system for more than one generation (around 30 years), and this transition is fundamentally based on multi-level perspectives and trans-disciplinary approach [8,9]. Public Health 2019, 16, 1441; doi:10.3390/ijerph16081441 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph

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