Reducing or fostering public opposition? A critical reflection on the neutrality of pan-European cost–benefit analysis in electricity transmission planning

Schmidt, Peter; Lilliestam, Johan

doi:10.1016/j.erss.2015.07.003

Cited by 24 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 65 publications

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“…Yet, normative issues about which energy future we want are key drivers for support or opposition to policies and projects-and hence greatly important for costs and a scenario's chances of realisation (see Ref. [107]). We thus call for future researchers, in particular electricity system modellers, to assess more than one type of system (e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shades of green: Centralisation, decentralisation and controversy among European renewable electricity visions

Lilliestam

Hanger

2016

Energy Research & Social Science

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a b s t r a c tTo decarbonise its electricity system, Europe must rapidly expand renewables. We analyse the controversy between two organisations, Eurosolar and Desertec, which seemingly pursue the same goal of 100% renewable electricity. We show that they interpret "100% renewables" differently and envision fundamentally different renewable electricity futures, to be reached through different governance pathways driven by different actors. Desertec reacts to mankind's violation of the Earth's carrying capacity and seeks secure decarbonisation through renewables, for which centrally regulated, large-scale imports of controllable concentrating solar power from the desert are necessary. Eurosolar, in contrast, seeks to decentralise the electricity supply and disempower the actors who caused the unsustainable and undemocratic energy system, for which renewables are suited as they are carbon-neutral and decentralised by nature. As the core aim of Desertec, controllable solar power imports through large-scale infrastructure, violates Eurosolar's core aim of decentralisation, a compromise is difficult: this would require one organisation to give up its primary objective. Our results show that the reason for this controversy among renewables proponents lies not in technology or cost, and can thus not be identified or resolved through techno-economic analysis or modelling, but in irreconcilable differences in normative aims and governance choices.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shades of green: Centralisation, decentralisation and controversy among European renewable electricity visions

Lilliestam

Hanger

2016

Energy Research & Social Science

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“…A specific challenge under joint projects with third countries is the requirement for physical electricity imports because the electricity to be counted towards the target of an EU MS needs to be consumed in the EU (Frieden, Tuerk, & Steiner, 2013). Although the process for transmission infrastructure to be permitted and built may take a decade or more (Schmidt & Lilliestam, 2015) and thus complicates the project design, the physical transfer requirement also means that the concerned electricity is not available to satisfy the domestic demand in the host country.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sharing the gains from EU–Western Balkan renewable electricity cooperation

et al. 2016

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The EU directive on renewable energy sources enables EU Member States to import renewable electricity from non-EU countries and count these imports towards their renewable energy targets. This article investigates whether such cooperation can be beneficial for selected Western Balkan countries and help them to increase their domestic renewable electricity supply: could wind power exports to the EU from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Albania and the Former Yugoslav Republic (FYR) of Macedonia enable additional investments in domestic generation, without 'selling out' the exporter countries' best generation sites? Or would exports rather conflict with the Western Balkans countries' domestic efforts to reach their renewable energy targets and increase the domestic electricity supply? For this, a model was developed in Visual Basic to optimize, from the exporters' perspective, the optimal export level to trigger investments but maximize the wind power supply for domestic use. The analysis takes into account the wind potential, support and price levels in the EU and Western Balkans, investor requirements and financing conditions in the investigated countries.The article shows that cooperation offers a way both for EU Member States and some Western Balkan countries to expand renewable electricity supply and reach their renewable energy targets in a cost-effective way. Partial exports of wind power would allow Serbia, Albania and the FYR of Macedonia to reach their 2020 wind targets. This would not be possible under their existing support schemes or electricity prices. The results indicate that Bosnia and Herzegovina lacks cost-efficient potentials and cannot achieve its wind target in the base case, with or without exports. Climate policy relevanceThe results show that wind power cooperation between the EU and Western Balkan countries may simultaneously increase the renewable electricity generation available for the domestic markets in the host countries and help EU Member States to achieve their renewable energy and decarbonization targets. Hence, wind power exports are a way for both the EU and the Western Balkans to provide more carbon-neutral electricity in a cost-effective manner and thus support the achievement of renewable energy and climate targets.

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“…In most cases, and especially for the approaches with high levels of stakeholder empowerment and engagement, the scenario changes depending on the stakeholders' evaluation of different parameters. Therefore, several interactions between experts and stakeholders may be necessary in order to develop the final scenarios [10,68,69]. The stakeholders' perspectives are usually analyzed at the beginning of the process and linked to the models in an iterative procedure.…”

Section: Scenario-based Approachesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The inclusion of their perspectives in the decision-making process may lead to the identification of new solutions; improve the legitimacy of decisions; and increase the likelihood that policy implementation will be more effective, efficient, and sustainable [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. Examples can be found in the sectors of disaster risk management, urban planning, water management, waste management repositories, and infrastructural projects [4,8,9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Comparing Approaches for the Integration of Stakeholder Perspectives in Environmental Decision Making

Scolobig

Lilliestam

2016

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Including stakeholder perspectives in environmental decision making is in many countries a legal requirement and is widely seen as beneficial as it can help increase decision legitimacy, likelihood of implementation, and quality of the outcome. Whereas the theoretical literature on stakeholder engagement is large, less attention has been devoted to comparing and discussing different methodological approaches. Here, we compare three approaches-multi-criteria analysis, plural rationality theory, and scenario construction-that include stakeholders' perspectives in environmental decision making. We find differences between the approaches concerning the assumptions about stakeholder rationality and whether experts and/or stakeholders are in charge of framing the problem. Further differences concern the type of data input from stakeholders and how it is used by the experts, as well as the role of stakeholders and whether they are involved early-already for identifying options-or later in the process, for evaluating or ranking alternatives analyzed by the experts. The choice of approach thus predetermines the type and depth of stakeholder engagement. No approach is "better" than another, but they are suited for different problems and research aims: the choice of the approach, however, has a large impact on the results.

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Reducing or fostering public opposition? A critical reflection on the neutrality of pan-European cost–benefit analysis in electricity transmission planning

Cited by 24 publications

References 65 publications

Shades of green: Centralisation, decentralisation and controversy among European renewable electricity visions

Shades of green: Centralisation, decentralisation and controversy among European renewable electricity visions

Sharing the gains from EU–Western Balkan renewable electricity cooperation

Comparing Approaches for the Integration of Stakeholder Perspectives in Environmental Decision Making

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