Suchergebnisse

The NEWCOMERS project aims to explore how new clean energy communities (ECs) develop, under which polycentric settings ECs evolve and under what conditions such initiatives are suppressed. At a national level, the project will assess socio-economic, technical, institutional characteristics and actors supporting the emergence of new clean energy communities. In Deliverable 3.1. and 3.2. the national characteristics of the six NEWCOMERS countries (Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) were described and compared. In this report, the six countries will be compared, with the aim to identify barriers and enablers for new clean energy communities to emerge in different national settings and to discuss the potentials for learning between different countries. The focus for the analysis lies on socio-economic conditions, the technical system, the institutional setting, and actors on the electricity market.Identified barriers are amongst others lack of knowledge, centralised energy production systems, too broad or too narrow definitions of ECs in regulations and policies, lack of tailormade policies for ECs and few dominating market actors. Identified enablers are for example trust, access to finance, a country's fossil fuel dependency, a liberalised market, Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs), and umbrella organisations.Several best practices supportive for clean energy communities to emerge were identified in the different NEWCOMERS countries and these are meant to be used as inspiration for others. These are for example virtual power plants, virtual net metering, government strategy for ECs, tailormade regulations, and umbrella organisations. National settings supporting ECs to emerge were identified and included the existence of a definition of EC in a national strategy or the legal framework, high GDP/capita which lie grounds for households to join an EC, fossil fuel dependency, tailormade programmes and schemes for ECs, decentralised market with multiple of actors and decentralised ...

One organizational innovation introduced by the clean energy for all Europeans package (CEP) is that of the energy community (EC), including the renewable energy community (REC) and citizen energy community (CEC). The translation of related directives into national legislation is underway in Sweden, and the Swedish Energy Market Inspectorate (Ei) has proposed a new law on ECs, which has been sent for consultation. This article analyzes the Ei proposal and the responses from the 27 referral bodies commenting on the new EC regulations. Positive aspects of the proposal were that it would be a law on ECs and that it would be easy to start and run an EC. Critics were concerned that the law was too vague, the relationship between existing cooperatives and the new ECs was not clear, both CEC and REC are used instead of only using one term, there is a lack of suggestions on supportive measures for ECs, ECs will have less favorable conditions than other micro-producers of electricity, there is a lack of barrier analysis and visions of a future of ECs, and finally, that the situation for marginalized households was not dealt with in the proposal.

In 2011 the Swedish Nuclear Fuel and Waste Management Company (SKB) applied for a permit to construct a disposal facility in Östhammar. The Swedish overnment is expected to make a decision in 2019. The Swedish National Council of Nuclear Waste did a survey to investigate how informed the Swedish parliamentary Members were in these issues. The first study was done with Members of Parliament (MP) in 2013 and the second with the MPs in 2016. The results of these surveys is discussed in this paper. Most MPs were aware of the ongoing application process. Rather surprisingly, there were more politicians who knew about the suggestions to use copper canisters, than knew that it is the government that will take a final decision on the matter.

This article focuses on households' action space and perceived responsibilities during power outages, and on how municipalities and grid companies understand their own and the households' responsibilities and action space. Results from a case study in the county of Östergötland showed that household responsibilities in terms of preparedness for outages were unclear to the actors. Both municipalities and grid companies expected households to be somewhat prepared. Households, however, believed that they were not responsible for being prepared for power outages, even though they need to be prepared to survive. Often the preparedness concerns material factors, such as investment in auxiliary generating capacity for use in case of outages. How the households perceive outages is important for their capacity to handle and feel comfortable in such situations.

Case studies of two Swedish municipalities indicate that the general energy area was divided into three independent policy areas: One dealing with supply, one with conservation and one with environmental questions related to the Agenda 21 vision of an ecologically sustainable energy system. However, the dominant energy policy area in the municipalities was supply policy. This article discusses why supply policy is dominant and the consequences of this for energy system development. Analysis of this pattern reveals that powerful actors, such as local energy companies, were able to mobilize support for supply policies, not least because they owned the energy plants and distribution networks. These actors were also represented in many different decision arenas, in contrast, actors representing the other energy policy areas often lacked power and resources, and were represented in only a few decision arenas. ; This is an electronic version of an article published in:Jenny Palm, Development of sustainable energy systems in Swedish municipalities: A matter of path dependency and power relations, 2006, Local Environment, (11), 4, 445-457.Local Environment is available online at informaworldTM: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13549830600785613Copyright: Taylor & Francishttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/default.asp

Increasingly, scholarly debates and policy developments on citizen participation in energy transitions have included calls for 'energy democracy' and active forms of 'energy citizenship'. The concepts are tightly connected to the debate on energy transition, and the need for a decentralised energy system, based on renewable energy and increased local energy ownership. The two concepts exist in parallel and are sometimes used as synonyms and sometimes with clear distinctions made between them. This spurred an interest to systematically investigate them further. The aim of this paper is to identify similarities and differences between the two concepts and synthesise their contributions to debates on citizen participation in energy transitions. We review the literature thematically, finding that the concepts often refer to participation in domestic energy technologies, energy communities, energy transition movements, and energy policy. Energy citizenship tends to emphasise behaviour change and ways for individuals to participate in energy systems, thereby often focusing on individuals as agents of change. In contrast, energy democracy tends to focus on institutionalisation of new forms of participative governance and often placing collectives as central agents of change. The review also highlights some weaknesses of the literature: a bias towards decentralised energy systems, a lack of attention to representational democracy, and an underrepresentation of studies from outside Europe and North America.

Urbanisation and climate change are urging cities to find novel pathways leading to a sustainable future. The urban context may be viewed as a new experimentation space to accelerate the transition to a circular economy. Urban symbiosis and circular economy are emerging concepts attracting more and more attention within the urban context. Moreover, new business models are emerging around sharing and peer-to-peer practices, which are challenging existing roles of actors in society. These developments have an important impact on the flows of resources and use of the city infrastructure, and each research area has taken a different perspective on the analysis of such impacts. This special issue aims to explore what a "circular city" could constitute and how and why cities engage in circularity. The special issue includes seven high-quality papers on theories and practices on circular cities. Actors, concepts, methods, tools, barriers to and enablers of circular cities are discussed and provide a solid base and inspiration for future developments of circular cities.

The industrial symbiosis (IS) landscape is evolving rapidly. While previous studies have argued for the importance of municipalities participating in the governing of IS, research on the implications of different forms of municipal organization is still lacking. This paper aims to investigate how municipal administration and municipally-owned corporations, as two forms of organization, impact the governing of IS in the water and sewage sector. This is explored in relation to the Swedish municipality Simrishamn, which recently underwent changes in the form of organization. Results show that municipal administration contributes to a more inclusive process where many actors can influence and bring ideas and perspectives on how to develop an IS. The risk, however, is that other issues within the municipality are seen as more pressing and, therefore, get prioritized before IS. In corporate form, the development of IS becomes more business-like as the focus is kept on core business. Technology development is strengthened as skills and competencies are promoted through the expertise of the employees. Drawbacks include processes becoming less transparent and political goals, such as citizen welfare not receiving the same level of priority as within municipal administration. There is also a risk that fewer perspectives are included in the process of developing IS, which may inhibit innovation, even if the results also indicate that an increased business focus of the corporate form strengthens the innovation capacity.

The industrial symbiosis (IS) landscape is evolving at high speed. There is a growing interest in knowledge sharing and partnering, as is evident from the establishment of multiple IS networks at local and regional level. This article investigates the role of local governments in industrial symbiosis. It aims to build a theoretical framework explaining how local governments can reduce barriers to implementation of IS by applying different modes of governing. Findings show that local governments can do many things to overcome barriers and thus enhance IS. In many instances, local governments can support IS in an enabling function, by coordinating relationships and material exchanges, providing infrastructure and funding. They can also apply authoritarian and self-governing principles to develop policies and regulations to support IS development, as well as planning and control mechanisms linked to their own material and resource flows. This article concludes by suggesting a number of policy recommendations, such as local governments establishing a clear strategy on IS, and including IS in physical planning.

Energy is an important social resource on which we depend in our everyday lives; however, energy-related emissions constitute a major environmental burden, so in Sweden a major political goal is to reduce total energy consumption and to use energy more efficiently. To achieve this, users need to transform their behaviour and start reflecting on their energy use. This paper discusses three different methods for visualizing energy use, namely information tools, keeping time diaries, and using the "Power-Are Cord." Each method has its pros and cons, but combining different methods could prove a useful way to drawing attention to household energy use and the possibilities for energy reduction. By combining the data gained from the different methods, we are more likely to find strategies that are better suited to people's behaviour. ; Original publication: Erica Löfström and Jenny Palm, Visualizing household energy use in the interest of developing sustainable energy systems, 2008, Housing Studies, (23), 6, 935-940.http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02673030802425602. Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

The article discusses accountability in governance of local energy and IT systems. The aim is to focus on accountability of local policy making regarding technical systems by comparing consequences when new forms of governance are developed. Governance steering demands and ensures a clear division of responsibility regarding what a network is responsible for, but not regarding who is accountable for the decision making and implementation. On the other hand, in a steering context characterized by government, it is clear who is responsible and accountable for decisions, but the specific issues for which different actors can be accountable are unclear. We argue that demands for clarifications of accountability emerges from the complex modern governance. ; This is an electronic version of an article published in:Elin Wihlborg and Jenny Palm, Who is Governing What? Governing Local Technical Systems-an Issue of Accountability, 2008, Local Government Studies, (34), 3, 349-362.Local Government Studies is available online at InformaworldTM: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03003930802044544Copyright: Taylor & Francishttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/default.asp