Abstract
Energy transitions around the world will change the spatial fingerprint of the electricity sector, but there is a lack of studies on citizen preferences for siting the future mix of electricity technologies. Using the case of Switzerland in 2035, we present a serious board game to form and elicit citizen preferences for spatial siting of a full mix of electricity technologies and we test this game with 44 participants in the city of Zurich. The game proves to help elicit valid preferences of the participants and lead to measurable learning effects about this complex, multi-dimensional topic. The results show that these 44 participants prefer a diverse mix of renewable technologies for Switzerland in 2035. In terms of siting, these participants consistently choose the efficiency strategy, where new plants are concentrated in the areas where they produce most electricity at least cost, in contrast to the strategy of regional equity, where all Swiss regions would equally build new generation and share the benefits and burdens of the energy transition.
Highlights
The Paris Agreement to mitigate climate change globally [1], the European Union’s long-term strategy of net-zero emissions [2], and many national plans for energy transition [3,4,5] include ambitious targets of low-carbon energy supply
As compared to today, where five nuclear reactors in four locations supply over a third of the Swiss electricity, the future electricity mix will undoubtedly change the spatial fingerprint of the electricity sector
Solar cells and hydropower were by far the two most preferred technologies and they were followed by wind power, biogas, waste incineration, woody biomass, and as the last preferred renewable technology, deep geothermal plants
Summary
The Paris Agreement to mitigate climate change globally [1], the European Union’s long-term strategy of net-zero emissions [2], and many national plans for energy transition [3,4,5] include ambitious targets of low-carbon energy supply. Hydropower already covers two-thirds of the electricity mix in Switzerland and, after the planned nuclear phase-out, techno-economic analyses indicate that the major share or even the full electricity mix would need to be based on renewable technologies [11,12,13]. Once disaggregated and regionalized, such scenarios with high shares of decentralized renewable technologies reveal all the more ambitious nature of the Swiss transition [13,14,15]. As compared to today, where five nuclear reactors in four locations supply over a third of the Swiss electricity, the future electricity mix will undoubtedly change the spatial fingerprint of the electricity sector
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