Enjoying the Heat? Co-Creation of Stakeholder Benefits and Sustainable Energy Development within Projects in the Geothermal Sector

Abstract

Analysis of the sustainability implications of the geothermal industry has tended to take a high-level or systemic overview of national performance rather than deeper, stakeholder-focused investigations. This study seeks to begin to fill this gap in the literature, investigating the following research question: how do projects in the Icelandic geothermal energy sector create co-benefits with stakeholders and reflect the integration of sustainable energy development (SED)? The focus of the analysis is identifying the stakeholders, what the sustainability benefits co-created with stakeholders are, and when in the projects’ life-cycle do these occur. Based on eleven semi-structured interviews with project managers in Iceland’s geothermal industry, the study identifies an array of stakeholders in the sector, including national and municipal governments, public sector institutions, businesses, the public, employees, and landowners. The sustainability co-benefits of Iceland’s geothermal power projects are broad and cut across all six aspects of SED and multiple phases of the project life-cycle. Although the sustainability benefits are apparent, trade-offs are reported between pursuing an economically efficient energy system and nature conservation. This relates to unsustainable utilization of the resources and the environmental externalities of power production and consumption. Efforts to mitigate these effects are ongoing, and further pursuit of SED is likely in Iceland given its recognition within the nation’s new energy policy and to meet ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets in the government’s climate action plan. These are prominent issues in other nations seeking to decarbonize energy systems through increased utilization of geothermal resources.

A Conceptual Exploration of How the Pursuit of Sustainable Energy Development Is Implicit in the Genuine Progress Indicator

“…Stakeholder consultation revealed six themes specific to the Icelandic context: nature conservation; social benefits; energy security; economically efficient energy system; sustainable energy production; and sustainable energy consumption. The differences between the four overarching themes of SED in [16] and the six identified as being specific to Iceland in [40] are that the national context placed more emphasis on the issues of nature conservation and social benefits. The six Iceland-specific themes were used in the conceptual exploration with respect to the identification in aim (2).…”

“…In the period subsequent to the envisioning of SED as a series of interlinkages between 'states' and general influence by governance forces, there was the emergence of thematization of the SED concept [43], which has nowadays progressed in importance to the point that it constitutes a core objective of global-scale initiatives, such as via Goal 7 of the SDGs. The increased significance of SED has once again reinforced the importance of national energy sustainability performance analysis [44] and the development of analytical tools for this purpose, especially indicators [15,40,45].…”

“…Following the identification of the four overarching themes, a set of SED indictors for Iceland has been developed following extensive stakeholder consultation involving stakeholder mapping, semi-structured interviews and focus groups, as well as a Delphi survey [40,42]. Stakeholder consultation revealed six themes specific to the Icelandic context: nature conservation; social benefits; energy security; economically efficient energy system; sustainable energy production; and sustainable energy consumption.…”

“…The six Iceland-specific themes were used in the conceptual exploration with respect to the identification in aim (2). The scope of the six themes is set out in Table 1 below, with the core features articulated by participants during the stakeholder consultation and Delphi survey discussed in [15,16,40].…”

“…With regard to (a), the uniqueness of Iceland's isolated energy system makes it an interesting case study, both in terms of its contribution to economic well-being and SED. Despite the nation's very high share (currently 90%) of domestic renewables in primary energy use [39], there remain considerable challenges to be overcome on the pathway to SED related to the decarbonization in the transportation and maritime sectors [35][36][37]40,41].…”