Energy System Transition Research Articles

Ecologies of participation in socio-technical change: The case of energy system transitions

Studies of societal engagement with socio-technical change are undergoing a systemic turn. Rather than simply viewing public engagement in science, policy and behavioural change in terms of discrete cases, key social theories in deliberative democracy, practice theory, socio-technical transitions and co-productionist scholarship in science and technology studies (STS) are moving to consider how diverse forms of participation interrelate in wider systems. In this paper we take stock of these advances to develop a conceptual framework for understanding ecologies of participation in socio-technical and democratic systems, grounded in relational co-productionist theory in STS. The framework is illustrated through empirical analysis of a systematic mapping of participation in UK energy system transitions between 2010 and 2015. This provides the first insights into system-wide patternings, diversities and inequalities of energy participation, the significant types of interrelation between practices of public engagement within wider ecologies of participation, and their mutual construction with political cultures and constitutions. The value and implications of adopting an ecologies of participation approach are considered with respect to the theoretical, empirical and practical challenges of understanding and building more inclusive, responsible and just socio-technical (energy) transitions.

A model-based analysis on energy systems transition for climate change mitigation and ambient particulate matter 2.5 concentration reduction

One of the most serious concerns facing developing countries is high concentrations of ambient particulate matter (PM2.5). Concurrently, climate change has also been a major challenge for countries around the world. Energy systems are dominant emission sources of both PM2.5 and carbon dioxide (CO2). This study investigates cost-efficient energy system transitions for individual or dual targets of climate change mitigation and PM2.5 concentration reduction by a global energy systems model. We set two levels of mitigation efforts for each of the CO2 and PM2.5 emissions, whose stringent one corresponds to the long-term target of the Paris agreement and current national air quality standards, respectively. For PM2.5 reduction, a combination of moderate improvement in energy efficiency and a transition from coal to gas and renewable energies and a significant deployment of end-of-pipe measures for scrubbing air pollutants is shown to be among the most cost-efficient strategy. For CO2 reduction, drastic improvement in energy efficiency and a rapid transition from coal to gas, renewable and nuclear energies is the most cost-efficient strategy, in contrast. There is a larger co-benefit on PM2.5 concentration reduction from CO2 reduction measures than the converse, and the co-benefit varies regionally. Developing countries such as India have a huge potential of co-benefits, and energy efficiency improvement and fuel switching are key measures to bring them. The simultaneous achievement costs of the dual targets are smaller than the sum of individual achievement costs, and the cost reduction varies significantly depending on the level of each mitigation target.

Transitioning to a 100% renewable energy system in Denmark by 2050: assessing the impact from expanding the building stock at the same time

Residential and service (office) buildings consume a large proportion of primary energy in Europe in the form of electricity and all other energy carriers. In response to this, the concept of near Zero Energy Buildings (nZEB) has been developed. These buildings have very low energy demands and integrate renewable energy to supply residual demand. nZEBs aim to increase energy efficiency from a demand-side user perspective. When looking at the entire energy system, there are also energy efficiency gains to be achieved on the supply-side. For example, from a district heating system. If an energy system becomes more efficient on the supply-side, then the question is how much energy needs to be saved on the demand-side, for instance by low energy buildings such as nZEBs. The purpose of this paper is to analyse and understand the implications from building new low energy buildings, i.e. nZEBs, within an energy system that is (a) transitioning to 100% renewable energy and (b) has substantially improved supply-side energy efficiency. A case study from Denmark is used to understand the outcome for the energy system when these new buildings are built in this context. The methodology and results of this study could be replicated for other European countries as well. The analysis looks at the total energy system heat savings, costs and biomass consumption. The paper shows that these new low energy buildings with very low heat demand do not deliver the expected benefits for the 100% renewable energy system transition in Denmark. This is due to the increased efficiency and flexibility of the energy supply system in the future. However, deep renovations of existing buildings are necessary. Furthermore, this paper demonstrates based on the Danish case, that as European countries decarbonise their energy systems over the next decades, they will need to carry out detailed energy system analysis to determine the extent to which heat demand should be reduced in buildings within the context of the transitioning energy system.

Odd couple or perfect pair? Tensions and recommendations for social scientist-industry partnerships in energy research

While academia-industry collaborations have primarily served to ensure ecological validity until recently, such collaborations are now seen as essential for solving wicked problems, such as the current transition of energy systems. Despite the upside potential, there are major challenges facing those who embark on academia-industry collaborations. Although applied researchers in general likely encounter similar challenges, this paper focuses on challenges of energy research collaborations between private industry and social scientists. We frame collaboration as an inherently social process, whereby a project is developed and proceeds, with errors made and successes achieved, within the context of social relationships. We argue that social breakdowns and different institutional values underlie most collaboration challenges, and that these issues need to be recognised and addressed to increase the chances of successful collaboration. We provide recommendations for improving industry-social science collaborations in energy research, concluding that like any other social relationship, given proper communication, agreed upon expectations, and shared values, industry and academia can make a perfect pair.

Synthesis of recent Swedish district heating research

In Sweden, district heating meets currently above half of the heat demands in buildings. District heating research in Sweden has a long tradition dating back to 1975. The latest research program period included 34 projects and was executed between 2013 and 2017. In this paper, a synthesis is performed on the Swedish research frontier by assessing these recent research projects. The three study purposes was to provide an overview over the executed projects, to identify new research questions, and to identify future challenges to the Swedish district heating industry. The assessment was based on six defined key areas, such as demand, resources, system frameworks, technology, cold supply, and international perspective. The subsequent content analysis was performed from three perspectives: the perspective of energy system transition, the customer perspective, and the sustainability perspective. Final conclusions include the three future challenges for the Swedish district heating industry. These are future strategies to communicate the value of district heating, vision for district heating beyond the transition to fossil free supply, and technology development for efficient use of low temperature heat sources.

INSMART – Insights on integrated modelling of EU cities energy system transition

Urban areas have a pivotal role to play in climate change mitigation, as they are responsible for a high share of energy consumption and provide many opportunities for more efficient supply & use of energy. This makes the case for energy system modelling at city level, as done within the INSMART EU project, which identified the optimum mix of measures for a sustainable energy future for four European cities in a holistic manner. The approach combined quantitative modelling with Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis. Sector specific data and models (buildings and transport) were articulated into one integrated energy system model based on the TIMES model generator. It was found that urban level energy modelling brings with it a new set of challenges, since for a well-known territory, transparency and effective communication with local decision-makers are even more important than at national or transnational level. Special efforts should be paid to making model results geographically explicit, and urban modelling results should expect scrutiny by local agents. It was found that there is a gap between the scope for action of local energy planners and the most energy intensive urban sectors, which highlighted new priorities instead of those traditionally taken under municipal management.

Effect of major policy disruptions in energy system transition: Case Finland

Finland has ambitious climate targets and intends to ban the use of coal and halve the oil use by 2030, mainly based on traditional forest biomass and nuclear power. These policy choices, however, encompass sizeable risks for a low-carbon energy transition. Here we investigate alternative pathways for disruptive risks from such policies based on massive introduction on variable renewable electricity (VRE) with intersectoral coupling through Power-to-X technologies (P2X), also considering future demand uncertainties. We analyzed several risk-involving scenarios for years 2030 and 2050 using a national energy system model with 1-h resolution, which includes power, heat and fuel sectors. The results indicate that even in case of worst-case energy policy risks with nuclear and bioenergy, a feasible energy system solution can be found. Renewable energy resources were employed to their maximum potential levels with P2X flexibility options, especially Power-to-Heat. However, without energy efficiency measures, the present renewable energy resource base was not able to compensate for all primary energy fall-out, which would lead to higher system costs and CO2 emissions. This implies that in case of high dominance of a few energy sources, an alternative pathway may require strong energy efficiency measures and developing further the renewable energy resource base.

Drag Reduction by Laminar Flow Control

The Energy System Transition in Aviation research project of the Aeronautics Research Center Niedersachsen (NFL) searches for potentially game-changing technologies to reduce the carbon footprint of aviation by promoting and enabling new propulsion and drag reduction technologies. The greatest potential for aerodynamic drag reduction is seen in laminar flow control by boundary layer suction. While most of the research so far has been on partial laminarization by application of Natural Laminar Flow (NLF) and Hybrid Laminar Flow Control (HLFC) to wings, complete laminarization of wings, tails and fuselages promises much higher gains. The potential drag reduction and suction requirements, including the necessary compressor power, are calculated on component level using a flow solver with viscid/inviscid coupling and a 3D Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) solver. The effect on total aircraft drag is estimated for a state-of-the-art mid-range aircraft configuration using preliminary aircraft design methods, showing that total cruise drag can be halved compared to today’s turbulent aircraft.

Japan's 2014 Strategic Energy Plan: A Planned Energy System Transition

This study is a review and analysis of the Japanese government's 2014 Strategic Energy Plan (SEP). As the first plan to be issued after the Fukushima disaster of March 2011, the 2014 plan incorporates policies that represent the most comprehensive and systematic changes ever proposed for Japan's energy system. The study reviews the key elements of the plan, employing a framework that explains the nature and magnitude of the changes planned for Japan's energy system and related institutions. The analysis demonstrates that the shock of the triple disaster opened up a window of opportunity in Japan's policy environment for a fundamental change in Japan's energy policy, allowing for major reforms to the energy industrial structure and energy institutions. A unique aspect of this study is that it draws upon in-person interviews conducted with key government officials who were directly involved in the formulation of the SEP, providing new insights into Japan's energy policy planning process and the drivers behind the planned reforms. Given the nature and magnitude of the potential changes implied in the SEP, this paper concludes that the 2014 SEP is best understood as a comprehensive blueprint towards a major planned transition of the Japanese energy system.

Energy System Transition in the Nordic Market: Challenges for Transmission Regulation and Governance

The energy system in the Nordic countries faces changes driven by increasing integration with the rest of Europe and changes to the generation mix. These developments pose challenges with respect t ...

Equally Supportive but for Different Reasons: Investigating Public Support for National Energy Transition Goals vs. Their Implementation

Energy system transitions in democracies require that national interests and central planning are reconciled with the public’s preferences. This pilot study investigates public support for the Swiss national energy strategy and two specific technologies that are part of it: expansion of hydropower and deep geothermal energy. It addresses two research questions. First, how does public support for a national energy transition differ from public support for specific technologies endorsed in an energy transition strategy? Second, are there differences in the factors influencing public support for these technologies? We investigate these questions empirically with a survey (N = 640), focusing on understanding the role lay-people’s expectations about the future energy system, political ideology, and future orientation play in generating support for these two levels of public support and for two technologies with different characteristics. We find that while support for an energy transition is well explained by above factors, this is true to a much lesser extent for technology support. One conclusion is that support for an energy transition and for energy technologies is politicized to varying degrees, which is why their acceptability may be less shaped by their objective characteristics, but rather by subjective perceptions and beliefs the public holds towards them.

Probabilistic model allocating primary energy to end-use devices

Useful Energy consumption is regarded as the main driver of energy system transitions. However, there are few national level estimates of useful energy consumption, mainly due to the lack of data and concerns about uncertainty. The first step to compute the useful energy consumption involves allocating primary energy to end-use conversion devices. A method is developed that employs widely available end-use energy statistics to allocate energy to conversion devices. The method includes an uncertainty analysis which is believe to increase the robustness of the results. In this paper, the method is applied to the United Kingdom in 2013. The results show that boilers are the device converting most primary energy in the UK (2.2 ±0.13 EJ) and that the consumption mix for the UK is much more equally distributed among devices compared to the global level and to China. The uncertainty analysis shows that it is difficult to rank many of the devices in terms of their primary energy consumption because the uncertainty is higher than the difference between the expected values; and that most uncertainty in the allocation is due to the uncertainty in the end use of final energy.

Green transition of energy systems in rural China: National survey evidence of households’ discrete choices on water heaters

Energy systems in rural China are experiencing a transition from traditional fossil fuels to renewables. This paper aims to investigate the potential factors that influence the choices of rural residents regarding water heaters with a focus on the low-carbon transition to solar water heating systems. To this end, a face-to-face questionnaire survey is undertaken with 3404 rural households randomly selected among 12 representative provinces. A comprehensive set of discrete choice modelling approaches were used. The empirical results show that (1) sociodemographic variables have significant effects on residents’ first-stage choice of a water heater (to buy or not to buy) but few effects on the second-stage decision to choose electric, LPG, or solar water heaters (which type to buy); (2) information spillover is important to facilitate the usage of water heaters, particularly of solar products; (3) the electricity price, which is regulated at a very low rate, has no apparent effect on the choice of solar water heaters; (4) government subsidy has a significant effect in the first stage but no differentiated effect on the decision choice in the second stage. Policy and managerial implications are presented to speed up the ongoing low-carbon transition of energy systems in China.

Measuring progress from nationally determined contributions to mid-century strategies

The Paris Agreement requires countries to articulate near-term emissions reduction strategies through to 2025 or 2030 by communicating nationally determined contributions (NDCs), as well as encouraging the formulation of long-term low-emission development strategies (Article 4.19) 1 . In response, many countries have either submitted or are preparing mid-century strategies 2 . Most NDCs set high-level near-term goals—such as limits on emissions or emissions intensity 3 —which do not provide information about the extent to which they lay the foundations of technology, infrastructure and institutions for deeper reductions in the future, which is a key question for decision makers. Here, using a state-level model of the US embedded within a global integrated assessment model 4,5 , we demonstrate that although the US NDC lies on a straight-line emissions pathway towards its mid-century strategy, the resulting energy system transitions involve nonlinear transformations. The rates of capacity additions and capital investments in electricity generation beyond 2025 are more than three times the rates during the next decade. Our results demonstrate the need for global stocktaking exercises to evaluate the NDCs using metrics broader than emissions to better illuminate their effectiveness in addressing the Paris Agreement’s long-term goals 6,7 . Achieving the longer-term goals of the Paris Agreement and transformation to a low-carbon society requires an acceleration in electricity generation investment and capacity addition above that outlined in the US Nationally Determined Contribution.

Solar photovoltaics demand for the global energy transition in the power sector

AbstractThe power sector is faced with strict requirements in reducing harmful emissions and substantially increasing the level of sustainability. Renewable energy (RE) in general and solar photovoltaic (PV) in particular can offer societally beneficial solutions. The LUT energy system transition model is used to simulate a cost‐optimised transition pathway towards 100% RE in the power sector by 2050. The model is based on hourly resolution for an entire year, the world structured in 145 regions, high spatial resolution of the input RE resource data, and transition steps of 5‐year periods. The global average solar PV electricity generation contribution is found to be about 69% in 2050, the highest ever reported. Detailed energy transition results are presented for representative countries in the world, namely, Poland, Britain and Ireland, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Indonesia. The global average energy system levelised cost of electricity gradually declines from 70 €/MWh in 2015 to 52 €/MWh in 2050 throughout the transition period, while deep decarbonisation of more than 95% around 2040, referenced to 2015, would be possible. The targets of the Paris Agreement can be well achieved in the power sector, while increasing societal welfare, given strong policy leadership.

Urban Development from Eco-City to Green Industry Cluster: Role of Guiding Vision and Lessons

지속가능한 도시개발을 위하여 장기적인 개발 목표가 요구된다. 무엇보다 일관성과 유연성을 지닌 개발목표는 참여자들에게 명확한 비전제사와 이해에 도움을 줄 수 있다. 특히, 독일의 프라이브루크는 1970년대 이후부터 현재까지 일관성과 유연성을 지닌 도시개발 목표를 이해관계자들에게 제시하였다. 그리고 이 목표들은 시기별로 이해관계자들의 참여를 기반으로 한 도시 거버넌스를 구축하였다. 이런 점에서, 본 연구는 프라이브루크가 어떻게 개발목표와 비전을 제시하였는지, 그리고 이를 바탕으로 어떻게 이해관계자들 간의 협력관계가 구축되었는가?에 대한 질문을 바탕으로 연구를 시작하게 되었다. 본 연구는 위의 연구질문을 바탕으로 1970년부터 2014년까지 추진된 프라이브루크의 에코시티 및 녹색산업단지 사례연구를 통해 도시개발 목표들의 활용법과 지속가능한 도시개발 전략을 분석한다. 그리고 이 목표들이 중요 시기별 구분하여 어떻게 이해관계자들 간의 협력관계 형성에 기여하였는지 분석하였다. 본 연구의 결과는 지속가능한 도시개발은 ‘도시개발 참여자들간의 높은 상호의존성, 일관성과 유연성을 지닌 목표, 그리고 이 목표들 내에 참여자들의 이해관계의 조율과 반영’이 중요한 요인으로써 작용했다고 밝혀졌다. 그 외에 경제적 조건은 이해관계자들의 적극적인 참여를 바탕으로 도시 거버넌스가 형성되면, 일정 부분 보완이 되는 점도 밝혀졌다. 그래서 본 연구는 급속한 도시화가 진행되는 개발도상국들이 도시개발 추진 과정에서 고려해야할 우선순위와 지속가능한 도시개발을 달성할 수 있는 실용적 방안에 관한 시사점을 제시한다.The Whyl protest in 1970s becomes the beginning of participation of citizens in urban politics and partnership for urban development in Freiburg. As the result, the transition of energy system toward the solar power became the guiding vision on the urban development. The Local Agenda 21 as the guiding vision also facilitated the urban development toward the eco-city of Freiburg at 1991. And the climate protection becomes the new guiding vision that promotes the urban development toward the green industry cluster. The guiding vision has directed stakeholders for sustainable urban development over periods. Further, the city has played the role as the space for interactions among stakeholders to accomplish the change under the guiding vision. In that sense, the experience of urban development in Freiburg has the important implication on stable urban development based on the partnership to realize the guiding vision. Hence, it needs to understand how the guiding vision in Freiburg has directed stakeholders to be interacted, and how they have managed the guiding vision to create the pressure on urban development. Thus, the study is supposed to analyze how the guiding vision in Freiburg has directed stakeholders to be collaborated, and how they have created the selective pressure(demand) and developed the capacity for stable development based on partnership. As the result of the case study, it proposes the practical lesson on the way of sustainable urban development by properly using the guiding vision based on the partnership.

Novel tools to study socio-technical transitions in energy systems

As the response to the financial downturn and arising social problems, eco-innovation flagship was elaborated as one of the main building blocks for sustainable, smart and inclusive growth. Nevertheless, the experts are increasing pointing out, that we are missing one important link, while focusing mainly on technical innovations and natural environment, social aspect is mostly disregarded. This social aspect includes human, economic, policy, organisational and other interactions in the system. By bringing together these three sectors – social, technical and natural environment – studies on so called socio-technical system is created. Currently, the studies using social and technical aspects for the research on transition processes are fragmented, both in terms of studied sectors, used methods and scientific fields. Especially, in the field of energy research the majority of the works study techno-economic aspects of the systems, while only few attempts have been made to incorporate socio-technical perspective as well. There are also identified clear lack of a holistic methodology, therefore the aim of this paper is to attempt to link engineering and social science study field to create such modelling approach. Socio-technical transitions are viewed from the perspective of various sectors, such as energy use, energy production and management, innovation diffusion and other. Also the transitions are looked from the scientific lenses of various possible methods and combinations of those. And last but not least, theses transitions studies are considered from the perspective of various scientific fields, both engineering and social science.

Gathering around stories: Interdisciplinary experiments in support of energy system transitions

This paper explores the creative uses of stories and storytelling to engage groups and individuals with consideration of changes in energy systems across time and place. It summarises three story-based experiments that responded to the theme of ‘energy utopias’. These are drawn from the three core strands of a much wider body of work undertaken within the Stories of Change project. This took stories as a central motif and organising device to refresh public and political conversations about energy and decarbonisation. Our hypothesis was that stories could offer a popular and engaging route into thinking about the past and present of humanity’s lives with energy and a lively way of imagining possible futures. We also wanted to test the degree to which stories could offer a shared intellectual space that might support both interdisciplinary and co-productive working for a core team that includes social science, humanities, media, computing and design researchers as well as creative and community partners. The paper considers some of the practical, methodological and theoretical considerations and reflects on the strengths and limitations of stories as both motif and technique in supporting action on climate change.

Early action on Paris Agreement allows for more time to change energy systems

The IMAGE integrated assessment model was used to develop a set of scenarios to evaluate the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted by Parties under the Paris Agreement. The scenarios project emissions and energy system changes under (i) current policies, (ii) implementation of the NDCs, and (iii) various trajectories to a radiative forcing level of 2.8 W/m2 in 2100, which gives a probability of about two thirds to limit warming to below 2 °C. The scenarios show that a cost-optimal pathway from 2020 onwards towards 2.8 W/m2 leads to a global greenhouse gas emission level of 38 gigatonne CO2 equivalent (GtCO2eq) by 2030, equal to a reduction of 20% compared to the 2010 level. The NDCs are projected to lead to 2030 emission levels of 50 GtCO2eq, which is still an increase compared to the 2010 level. A scenario that achieves the 2.8 W/m2 forcing level in 2100 from the 2030 NDC level requires more rapid transitions after 2030 to meet the forcing target. It shows an annual reduction rate in greenhouse gas emissions of 4.7% between 2030 and 2050, rapidly phasing out unabated coal-fired power plant capacity, more rapid scale-up of low-carbon energy, and higher mitigation costs. A bridge scenario shows that enhancing the ambition level of NDCs before 2030 allows for a smoother energy system transition, with average annual emission reduction rates of 4.5% between 2030 and 2050, and more time to phase out coal capacity.

The Low-Carbon Transition toward Sustainability of Regional Coal-Dominated Energy Consumption Structure: A Case of Hebei Province in China

CO2 emission resulted from fossil energy use is threatening human sustainability globally. This study focuses on the low-carbon transition of Hebei’s coal-dominated energy system by estimating its total end-use energy consumption, primary energy supply and resultant CO2 emission up to 2030, by employing an energy demand analysis model based on setting of the economic growth rate, industrial structure, industry/sector energy consumption intensity, energy supply structure, and CO2 emission factor. It is found that the total primary energy consumption in Hebei will be 471 and 431 million tons of coal equivalent (tce) in 2030 in our two defined scenarios (conventional development scenario and coordinated development scenario), which are 1.40 and 1.28 times of the level in 2015, respectively. The resultant full-chain CO2 emission will be 1027 and 916 million tons in 2030 in the two scenarios, which are 1.24 and 1.10 times of the level in 2015, respectively. The full-chain CO2 emission will peak in about 2025. It is found that the coal-dominated situation of energy structure and CO2 emission increasing trend in Hebei can be changed in the future in the coordinated development scenario, in which Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area coordinated development strategy will be strengthened. The energy structure of Hebei can be optimised since the proportion of coal in total primary energy consumption can fall from around 80% in 2015 to below 30% in 2030 and the proportions of transferred electricity, natural gas, nuclear energy and renewable energy can increase rapidly. Some specific additional policy instruments are also suggested to support the low-carbon transition of energy system in Hebei under the framework of the coordinated development of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area, and with the support from the central government of China.