Finland's energy system for 2030 as envisaged by expert stakeholders

How to Achieve a More Resource‐Efficient and Climate‐Neutral Energy System by 2030? Views of Nordic Stakeholders

“…Self‐sufficiency, however, is only one aspect pertaining to interest in security of supply in this view. Guaranteeing uninterrupted energy supply also includes the ability to address disruptions through supporting microgrids, which are so far not included in official policies; and allowing network operators to use energy storage as part of their grid operations, which is so far forbidden on grounds of the Finnish interpretation of EU level regulations according to which production is unbundled from distribution and storage associated with production (Toivanen et al, ). Nuclear power received support on grounds of security of supply—here, these Finnish respondents may have been thinking of the 45% share of Russian imports in Finland’s final energy consumption.…”

“…The first step is to compile the Q sample, which models the domain of subjectivity of interest to us—the debate on the Nordic 2030 energy policy measures and solutions—in the form of a well‐selected set of statements. For this purpose, we used reports, studies, and scenarios on the energy system published by the key stakeholders in the public, energy industry, business, and NGO sectors as well as existing academic studies (Toivanen et al, ). The selection of statements from the material was guided by a two‐dimensional heuristic model of the debate on the development of the energy system (see Table ).…”

“…Business actors are slightly overrepresented owing to their centrality to the development of any future infrastructures and technologies. To form the respondent group, we expanded our previous work on Finnish stakeholders (Toivanen et al, ). The face‐to‐face Q sorts in Finland were conducted in spring–summer 2016 ( n = 25), and the Q sorts in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden were conducted during January and February 2017 ( n = 18).…”

“…Stakeholders are especially important in the Nordic states, given their egalitarian and corporatist political traditions accentuating participation and interest group consultation. Here, we expand previous Q methodological work analyzing the views of Finnish stakeholders (Toivanen et al, ) by including further stakeholders from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Finnish stakeholders, however, are still deliberately overrepresented; of the four countries, Finland faces the greatest transition challenges.…”

“…These interests are more generic than the vested interests of stakeholders’ vis‐à‐vis certain solutions such as wind power in Denmark, CCS in Norway, and biomass in Finland. The generic interests include not only the key focus on resource efficiency and climate neutrality, but also further interests such as research and development capacity building; competition and energy market development, including prices; and energy business, including its wider socioeconomic effects on employment and taxation, and security of supply (Figure ; Aalto et al, ; Toivanen et al, ).…”