Abstract
The study aims to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of renewable energy deployment in regional energy transitions for the regions of Bavaria, Georgia, Québec, São Paulo, Shandong, Upper Austria, and Western Cape, which comprise a political and scientific network called the Regional Leaders’ Summit (RLS) and RLS-Sciences, respectively. The results classify current renewable energy usage for electricity, heat and fuel production, existing renewable energy potentials, sound legal frameworks to support renewable energy, ongoing research and development activities and expertise in renewable energy conversion and storage as strengths. That fossil fuels still hold a significant share in gross inland energy consumption, energy-intensive industrial structures continue to be supported by fossil fuels and grid access is limited for renewables are identified as weaknesses. The main opportunities are green economies, climate change mitigation and technological innovations. Associated threats are demographic developments, lack of social acceptance and renewable energy resource volatility. We conclude that these regions’ energy systems could potentially enable the realization of a strong integration of renewables and cover partially distributed, decentralized energy systems with embedded energy storage, and the application of smart technologies. Furthermore, we discover that the role of governments in guiding and managing regional energy transitions is highly important.
Highlights
The transition of the world’s energy systems towards carbon-neutrality, with a significant increase of renewable energy, is a global trend with outstanding dynamics
Advancing the transition to a climate-neutral economy requires decarbonizing traditional production and consumption structures, implying investments in both energy efficiency and renewable energy. This transitioning to a climate-neutral energy system involves effective multilevel governance practices, especially with respect to alignment among levels of government and stakeholder engagement [9]
Recent examples have included the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) supported “Talanoa Dialogue” in 2018 [10,11], which drew best practice examples from international, national, subnational, municipal, NGO and industry actors, the European Climate Initiative [12], which works within the EU, the G20 Country Experiences on Climate and Energy [13], which was derived by the G20 Climate Sustainability Working
Summary
The transition of the world’s energy systems towards carbon-neutrality, with a significant increase of renewable energy, is a global trend with outstanding dynamics. The share of renewables in final energy consumption continues to increase globally with some technologies developing very fast [2,3,4]. Advancing the transition to a climate-neutral economy requires decarbonizing traditional production and consumption structures, implying investments in both energy efficiency and renewable energy. This transitioning to a climate-neutral energy system involves effective multilevel governance practices, especially with respect to alignment among levels of government and stakeholder engagement [9]. The Vertical Integration and Learning for Low-Emission Development in Africa and Southeast Asia project [14], which targets the subnational and municipal levels, or the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI)-sponsored California–China
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