Suchergebnisse

Work Package 4 of the ENTRUST project focuses on the policy landscape of energy transitions in the European Union. This deliverable provides an up-to-date picture of the current situation concerning the policies and regulations related to the energy system in a range of European countries. Key technological, social and market factors are scrutinised in order to understand the various energy policy frameworks in Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Italy, and Germany. An analysis of the national dialogues in each of the member states is provided with a particular focus on the key public discourses, along with an assessment of the main barriers hindering low carbon measures, in each country. As the ENTRUST project looks at the human factor within the energy system, this deliverable seeks to identify the socio-political and economic components contributing to the political agenda on energy. The sustainable energy transition paradigm, that involves a gradual shift from conventional energy sources to renewable, more region-specific ones, is assessed using new institutionalism theory. This theory fits quite well into the overall approach being taken by the ENTRUST project and has helped the authors to gain a deeper understanding of how the political system deals with the complexity that is ingrained in the energy transition. Also, how the frameworks within which socio-political institutions and policy paradigms operate and influence the direction and speed of the transition is explored. As key influencers in the energy transition, institutions play a key role in governing the behaviours on multiple levels, from individuals to the communities they participate in. The term "institution" is somewhat amorphous in its usage. It has been commonly used to describe both the formal entities setup to regulate people (e.g., supranational and national governments and the public services they provide) and the more informal practices associated with individual and group customs or behavioural patterns that have been ...

The overall aim of WP4 is to use the insights gathered from WP2 (relating to energy technologies) and WP3 (regarding socio-economic analysis) to formulate a best practice policy toolkit for EU member states. As such, it will serve as a key input for WP6 to define innovative energy pathways, for WP7 to integrate this work package's outputs in the energy portal, and for WP8 to stimulate dialogue at the national and EU level. This deliverable is an output for Task 4.3 that identifies and characterises the suite of energy behaviour change initiatives across a range of European Union countries. Section 1.2 provides an overview of the aims and objectives. With reference to several case studies across Europe, this deliverable has provided insights on success factors and commonly encountered barriers to energy behaviour change initiatives. Through an evaluation of a number of identified and characterised initiatives across the UK, Ireland, Spain, France and Italy, energy behaviour change initiatives are noted as being the 'holy grail' of sustainability which have the potential to influence the ways in which people use technologies as part of their everyday practices (Jackson, 2005). It is well noted that behaviour, practices and culture constitute a powerful human factor in the energy system; in particular the interactions between technologies, practices and norms that lock individuals in to certain patterns of (often inefficient) energy use. The result has been an increasing focus in behaviour change research, particularly on the social contexts in which people live, the routines they shape, and the extent to which people feel empowered to change them. This deliverable has identified, and characterised, a series of behaviour change initiatives, indicating the factors contributing to their relative success in influencing energy actions. The projects reviewed here illustrate a snapshot of current practices in this area, and while these projects do not represent an exhaustive list, it is from these understandings that a ...

The ENTRUST project aims to analyse the social dimension of the European energy system to achieve a deep understanding of the human factor. It is not possible to have a comprehensive understanding of the energy system without analysing the policy landscape and its influence on energy consumption, and that is the main objective of the WP 4 of ENTRUST. The first task already resulted in a first deliverable, the D4.1 "Report on policy & regulation landscape", that provides an overview of the legislation related to the European energy system. As per one of the objectives of ENTRUST, to better understand the human factor in the energy system, a specific analysis focusing on the influences of the energy market and its impact on behavioural change, was added to the mapping undertaken in D4.1. This deliverable 4.3 "Review of market-driven approaches in sustainable energy policies" is the result of this action. This deliverable aims to review this type of approach in supporting sustainable energy policies. The first part of the deliverable provides an overview on the use of market-based instruments (MBIs) in the six selected countries with specific attention on differences between their strategic orientations. The second part highlights particularly successful uses of MBIs and identifies the best practices to be replicated in the future applications of similar instruments. To work towards these energy and environmental 2020-objectives and more generally to tackle environmental issues due to human activities, the Member States have several policy approaches to support the sustainable energy policies set at European level: command & control and market-driven approaches. Many emerging sustainable energy technologies are not fully competitive yet, compared to conventional ones. One of the main challenges of the EU Member States is to support their deployment and to "use every tool at [their] disposal to drive down costs, to ensure renewable energy technologies become competitive and ultimately market driven" (EC, ...

The principal objective of the ENTRUST project is to develop an understanding of the "human factor" in the energy system in order to utilise derived knowledge to foster the transition towards a sustainable energy paradigm. To develop this understanding, it is necessary to assess the policy landscape that influences energy consumption, the progress of the energy transition, and the public discourse on, and engagement with the energy transition – this work forms the basis of Work Package 4. Within this WP, T4.2 entitled "Assessment of Europeanisation in national policy dialogue" operates on the premise that "Europe's energy systems are deeply integrated" assesses the extent to which this is reflected in national policy dialogues. Despite all the efforts to date to shape the European project including the energy dimension, complete integration of energy infrastructures and markets has not been achieved (Auverlot et al., 2014). In order to address the existing problems that result from this non-integration it is necessary to develop a meaningful, coherent, and comprehensive EU energy policy. Such an EU energy policy is vital to deal with global issues: Tackling climate change requires not only a shared commitment but also a common means; Building a coherent and comprehensive climate policy could strengthen the leading role of Europe in the international climate negotiations; Energy security issues must be considered in a comprehensive and inclusive manner on a EU-wide basis, rather than solely on the national scale, in order to tackle common problems and further protect European interests; Ensure the competitiveness of European companies; Inspire the European project which is losing momentum. This deliverable, D4.2, analyses the development of such a European energy policy, the different Europeanisation processes influencing this development, and to what extent this EU vision is transcribed into the national policy dialogues. The Europeanisation topic has been widely studied over the past two decades. While some ...