Globally, countries are transitioning their national electricity grid system to meet the obligations of the Paris Agreement. National grid-connected renewable electricity provides an opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Specifically, in a developing country like Nigeria, renewable energies such as solar and wind power can play a critical role not only in transitioning away from fossil-fuel based electricity systems but also to address prevalent energy security challenges, electricity supply deficit and gaps in energy access. Policies, plans, and strategies to ensure grid-connected renewable energy have been put in place, but these measures have proved ineffective. Likewise, there are limited studies that investigate these transition problems, including drivers and enablers from a developing country perspective. This research fills that gap in knowledge by investigating these transition dynamics through a qualitative approach applying the multi-level perspective framework. Thirty-one (31) key energy and non-energy actors were interviewed, and the transcripts thematically analysed. Findings indicate that there is prospect for Nigeria to transform its electricity system. However, there are major deterrents including institutional, infrastructural, incumbent electricity system instability and economic barriers. The paper highlights that there is a level of regime stability/instability that will enable renewable energy development. In addition, practical and policy insights are offered to overcome identified challenges towards accelerating electricity system transformation. Future studies should also explore the degree of instability, stability and change in developing country settings necessary for energy transition to occur. Finally, this paper advances debates in energy transition and socio-technical system studies.

Geoengineering could counteract climate change by either altering the earth's global energy balance by reflecting sunlight or removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Geoengineering evokes various ethical and political challenges that are increasingly reflected in public debate and deliberation. Via a qualitative textual analysis of 1500 articles, we investigate discursive claims critical of geoengineering, considering what subjects are the most controversial, and what worldviews, values, and problematizations are shared by the actors subscribing to this discourse. We argue that the controversy about geoengineering differs, discursively, from other techno-political conflicts. Geoengineering proponents are described as reluctantly favouring research and deployment and displaying an unusual self-reflexivity, as they are well aware of and seriously consider all the technology's risks. Our analysis demonstrates that the discourse critical of geoengineering differs from and questions the dominant pro-geoengineering discourse in several profound ways with lasting implications for energy scholarship and analysis.

This paper presents a case study of a Swedish municipality, focusing on how local industry and local authorities, collaborating through industrial energy efficiency networks (IEENs), can increase the amount of realized energy efficient measures. The Swedish case discussed here has similarities to a German/Swiss organizational model with the purpose of supporting small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in their implementation of energy efficient measures. Both models have a strong focus on knowledge creation through practice rather than on information sharing. The background, design, benefits, and drawbacks of the Swedish case model are discussed here through document studies and interviews with participants in the project. The Swedish model implies that by supporting knowledge creation in SMEs through a practice dimension, the amount of realized energy efficient measures can be increased. This model should therefore be recognized as an effective policy instrument for municipalities that are interested in supporting local industry. Another conclusion is that information sharing in networks must be complemented by the creation of situated local knowledge through practices. Finally, value, situated practical experience, trust, knowledge creation, and informal meetings are important factors that enabled the network to fully support SMEs in implementing energy efficient measures.

Modelling the energy use of buildings during the planning process is a well-established practice within the construction industry today. This article studies how these models are handled in practice and the issues that arise around them. This is a case study that follows the planning process of a block of rental buildings in Sweden. With an Actor Network approach this article shows how the complexity of the energy model affects the relationships between the energy consultant and the professionals from the construction company. Since the construction company professionals do not understand the calculations behind the model, they have to trust the energy consultants expertise. Furthermore, the energy modelling practices create tensions when proposed architectural designs are at odds with the energy efficiency goals. Lastly, the article shows how the uncertainties connected to the models calculations provide an arena where personal feelings are allowed to be part of the process. From the perspective of the involved professionals, energy modelling is shown to entangle social and material relations in ways that have not previously been studied in relation to energy efficiency in the process of planning new buildings.

Local generation of renewable energy in energy communities has long been around, but has recently experienced an upswing. This upswing is partly due to the EU Clean Energy Package (CEP), where energy communities are introduced juridically as formal actors. Within this policy package, various values are attributed to local energy communities, particularly emphasising broadened citizen participation. Also in academic contexts, energy communities are assigned an important role for a just energy transition. Considering this increasing importance and policy prevalence, it is relevant to explore what types of energy communities exist and are emerging in light of the CEP, and which values these correspond with. We do so by exploring how Swedish solar energy communities are configured and what values they foreground, through the analytical lens of problematizations. Exploring how different configurations entail particular problematizations elucidates how certain values are constructed as relevant, possibly to the detriment of other possible values, thus deepening our understanding of solar energy communities' potential contribution to a just energy transition. We discern a pattern in that particular values related to energy system optimisation are foregrounded, rather than other values such as democratisation, indicating the existence of a broader hegemony that shapes configurations of Swedish solar energy communities.   

Developing a low-carbon energy system requires far-reaching societal transformations, not least in energy-related practices and behaviour. Smart energy grids have recently gained attention among national governments as a potential solution for low-carbon energy transitions at the household level as they are assumed to empower energy consumers and make them an active part of a more balanced and sustainable energy system. The aim of this paper is to investigate the ways in which managers of such project interventions understand the sources of agency leading to a more sustainable energy use and whether these changes are rather driven by the design of devices or incentives, or by the broader socio-political context of user agency. These investigations are enriched by a comprehensive review of social science literature on smart energy grids. Interviews with technology and project developers of four smart energy grid projects in Sweden (READY, InteGrid, InterFlex, and FLEXICIENCY), and reviews of developer's reports and presentations were done to investigate how technology and project developers try to use devices as intermediaries to increase household participation in smart energy grid projects and change their energy-consuming practices. The result showed that developers primarily focus on the functionality of their devices and user interfaces. However, it also highlights that they often overlook the integration of these technologies within the broader socio-cultural and political contexts that critically influence technology adoption.

Keeping global warming well below 2 °C entails radically transforming global energy production and use. However, one important mitigation option, the use of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), has so far received only limited attention as regards the sociopolitical preconditions for its deployment. Using questionnaire data from UN climate change conferences, this paper explores the influence of expertise, actor type, and origin on respondents’ a) preferences for investing in BECCS, b) views of the role of BECCS as a mitigation technology, globally and domestically, and c) assessment of possible domestic barriers to BECCS deployment. Non-parametric statistical analysis reveals the low priority assigned to investments in BECCS, the anticipated high political and social constraints on deployment, and a gap between its low perceived domestic potential to contribute to mitigation and a slightly higher perceived global potential. The most important foreseen deployment constraints are sociopolitical, which in turn influence the economic feasibility of BECCS. However, these constraints (e.g. lack of policy incentives and social acceptance) are poorly captured in climate scenarios, a mismatch indicating a need for both complemented model scenarios and further research into sociopolitical preconditions for BECCS.

This perspective paper illustrates that the critical debate regarding geological storage of carbon dioxide has been discursively marginalised in recent years. However, two crucial factors make it reasonable to assume that significant storage-related uncertainties and challenges still exist.

Firstly, experiences of geological storage are primarily related to enhanced oil recovery. Secondly, recent assessments indicate a doubling of the required quantity compared to what was envisioned back in 2005. Therefore, there seems to be a contradiction: as the visions of geological carbon dioxide storage have grown increasingly ambitious, the risks and challenges associated with storage have been marginalised.

The paper suggests geological storage should become a topic of concern for critical social science and concludes with a reflection on five tentative explanations to the discursive marginalisation: 1) Increasing experience and knowledge have resulted in reduced risks; 2) The climate crisis and urgency have supported a broader acceptance of controversial mitigation options; 3) A shifting focus from fossil fuels with CCS to bioenergy with CCS has introduced new and salient problems that make storage-related challenges seem relatively less significant; 4) Coupling CCS to bioenergy has disarmed critics that primarily argue against prolongation of the fossil fuel era, and finally 5) Familiarisation and normalisation processes.

Many energy consuming household activities are collectively organized, while in information campaigns for energy conservation they are regarded as planned and performed by individuals in isolation. This article aims at scrutinizing this mismatch by analytically examining how energy-consuming activities are allocated and organized among household members and explore the implications for energy consumption. Time-geographic concepts ground for the investigation and empirical illustrations are taken from a uniquely rich historic Swedish pilot study on time-use from 1996. The pilot offers time-diaries from members of the same households which allow analysis on activity allocation in the households. We present a conceptual framework with two overarching principles of activity allocation; project division and project sharing. Visualizations of daily activity sequences from time-diaries in the pilot study are used to analyze the household project providing meals. The overall result indicates that the ways households allocate and coordinate energy consuming activities matter to energy use. Consequently, it is important to consider the household with its members for understanding daily energy consuming activities and peoples possibilities to conserve energy. If reconfigured to fit into the interlinked everyday life activity sequences of household members, energy advice and information campaigns might improve the opportunities to reach their targets. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Changing power relations and the empowerment of frontrunners are considered crucial preconditions for sustainability transitions. This paper looks into the empowerment of actors in the context of a transition intervention in the Global South. We argue that empowerment is of particular importance in contexts of the Global South or those with illiberal characteristics. A holistic understanding of empowerment is needed to improve transition governance instruments in heterogeneous institutional environments. Therefore, we introduce a multi-dimensional empowerment framework that integrates empowerment effects in terms of resources, willingness and social capital and apply it to an ongoing transition intervention in the building sector of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. We hereby explore in which ways and to what degree an urban transition governance intervention can contribute to the empowerment of frontrunners in the Global South. Our results indicate that empowerment effects were particularly noticeable in the social capital and willingness dimensions. While mental resources were expanded, a lack of financial means persisted. The study highlights the need to stronger engage with resource-related empowerment as well as the need for transition studies to develop interventions that succeed in balancing the creation of empowering safe spaces and the selective integration of state actors in illiberal contexts in the Global South and elsewhere. Finally, it also demonstrates that the application of a multi-dimensional empowerment framework supports a differentiated analysis of transition interventions, much needed given the complexities of the construction sector in the Global South.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a major landscape shock that is having pervasive effects across socio-technical systems. Due to its recentness, sustainability scientists and other researchers have only started to investigate the implications of this crisis. The COVID-19 outbreak presents a unique opportunity to analyze in real time the effects of a protracted landscape-scale perturbation on the trajectories of sustainability transitions. In this perspective, we explore the ramifications for sustainability transition research on electricity and mobility, drawing from selected examples in Finland and Sweden. The long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic are likely to trigger more permanent changes connected to the digitalization of work and other daily activities, thus reducing mobility needs and overall fossil-energy consumption. The crisis may encourage governance systems to be better prepared for different types of shocks in the future, while it also contains a threat of increasingly populist or undemocratic political responses and increased securitization. These developments can guide research by addressing the reproduction of new practices arising from the COVID-19 outbreak to accelerate sustainability transitions, enhancing understanding of the role of governance in transitions, and bringing to attention the ethical and political implications of landscape shocks.

Policy mixes are needed to overcome the different barriers hindering sustainability transitions. This creates the need for policy coherence. Policy coherence studies in sustainability transitions literature are dominated by European cases, limiting their generalizability. This article analyzes policy mixes related to biogas systems and their related coherence issues, and, how that influences biogas production and use in Brazil. We identified policy coherence within and between biogas related sectors and over time, showing how the pre-conditions for biogas production, distribution and use differ considerably between the Brazilian states. This points to a need for decentralized governance structures to enable policy differentiation, as a complement to policy coherence. The article concludes that the characteristics of biogas systems as being locally embedded constitutes a challenge in hierarchical market economies such as Brazil, where policy development, resource mobilization and allocation are highly centralized.

The speed and progress of transitions towards renewable energy systems varies greatly between Europeanmember states. Among others, these differences have been attributed to the emergence of grassroots initiatives(GIs) that develop radical ideas and sustainable practices. The goal of this paper is to understand the differencesin the emergence of GIs for renewable energy in relation to the institutional characteristics of Denmark, theNetherlands and Sweden. We analyze the possibilities of GIs to emerge and act within three dimensions: thematerial-economic, the actor-institutional and discursive dimension. We conclude that conditional factors liewithin the material-economic dimension in terms of the biophysical conditions, the structure of the economy,energy dependency and the energy market. Within the actor-institutional dimension, we conclude that thepresence or absence of fossil fuel incumbents, such as regional utilities, strongly influence the possibilities of GIs.Within the discursive dimension, openness for alternative discourses proved to be enabling for GI-activities, aswell as democratized knowledge production. In addition to these conditions of possibility, GIs can also actdespite dominant institutions, albeit limited. Finally, GIs need a strong network with knowledge institutes,technology developers and political parties in order to achieve institutional change that enables GIs to flourish.Without institutional space, GIs remain subjected to the dominant power-relations, and cannot exert much influenceupon the energy system.

Decades of efforts to replace traditional cooking methods that rely on solid biomass fuels with cleaner-burning and more energy-efficient cookstoves have fallen short of expectations, typically because the new stoves are only used for a short time, or they fail to fully displace the traditional methods. This points to a need to better understand how cookstove users assign value to the new cooking technologies. Recent research has shown that service design methods can help cookstove developers and programme implementers to better understand users’ values, preferences, and needs and improve the stoves and supporting services to achieve greater success. This study builds on that work by combining service design methods and quantitative monitoring of cookstove usage in a small-scale pilot project to introduce clean burning biomass pellet cookstoves in two peri-urban areas outside Nairobi, Kenya. It identifies three different user archetypes, based on their primary motivation for trying new stoves – saving money, convenience, and health and safety. It finds critical weaknesses in the pilot intervention from the perspective of each archetype, and it verifies the findings of the qualitative analysis by reviewing the corresponding stove use monitoring data.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS), including bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS), could contribute to climate change mitigation strategies. However, the 2020s is not the first time that CCS is high on the agenda. This study explores the differences between the past and current developments of CCS and discusses how incumbent actors' experiences can inform the understanding of potential future energy system transitions in Sweden. For this purpose, a multi-level perspective (MLP) analysis was conducted based on documents, in- terviews and focus groups with key actors. Since the 2000s, increased urgency of climate change has further pushed policy makers into action. In addition, there is a new framing of CCS that underscores the potential of BECCS to provide negative carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, as well as prospects for offshore storage of CO2 in Norway and other territories. As such, this study shows that Sweden could be on a transformation pathway towards implementing CCS alongside other mitigation measures.

The gigantic volumes of carbon dioxide (CO2) removal likely needed to comply with the Paris Agreement beg the question of who should pay for the negative emissions. Incentivizing negative emissions is difficult, as it entails reversing the fiscal attractiveness associated with carbon taxes and emissions trading in favour of the more unattractive need to pay for removals. The inherent difficulty of funding global public goods associated with large private costs will make it hard for future governments to share this burden among themselves. We propose that this problem can be solved by a CO2 emitter liability operationalized through Atmospheric CO2 Removal Deposits (ACORDs). Anyone that emits fossil CO2 to the atmosphere would be obliged to finance the removal of at least as much CO2 from the atmosphere. Linking the liability to ACORDs acknowledges that a major part of the negative emissions needs to be made in the future. The emitters' financial deposits, including earnings, can be redeemed upon certified proof of removal. The ACORDs system would comply with the widely accepted principle of producer liability, i.e., that companies are responsible for the damage caused by their products. The system would also provide additional incentives to reduce emissions and an innovative funding source for coming generations to accomplish negative emissions. Furthermore, inequity and historical emissions can be addressed by gradually increasing overcompensation. The paper also includes a critical assessment of the basis of negative emissions, i.e., the need, the technologies and their potentials, the costs, and the required retention time.

District heating in Sweden has undergone changes in recent decades. Parallel with transition towards sustainability,a considerable ownership restructuring has occurred, due to liberalization of energy markets.The aim of this paper is to describe and analyze trends of mergers and acquisitions in the Swedish districtheating market. A systematic review of ownership in 290 municipalities has been performed throughannual reports, press releases, websites, municipal minutes, newspaper articles and personal contacts.The paper shows a transformation from municipal to diverse ownership, decreased municipal ownershipand increased internationalization. The window of opportunity provided by liberalization was usedespecially by the “big three” (E.ON, Fortum and Vattenfall) in order to strengthen market position early inthe wave of acquisitions. The time period 1996–2005 was especially hectic, showing strategies of cherrypicking hot spots for acquisitions, with the “big three” being responsible for a large proportion of these.The period after 2006 showed trends of companies selling several district heating businesses at once,through large-scale disinvestment. The paper shows a transformation of the district heating regime, firstas a reaction to changes on the electricity market and later in its own right, raising concerns regardingthe weak position of customers.

With this paper we aim to contribute to the field of sociotechnical studies, and more specifically Large Technical Systems (LTSs) to understand what happens in mature systems and how different segments develop. We argue that there is a need to discuss LTSs more heterogeneously to fully grasp how phases of stagnation and drift play out differently. Our focus is on district heating in Swedish municipalities with a shrinking population. As such district heating is an important system for climate measures in Europe and in Sweden it has a long tradition of municipal ownership and strong development. The emphasis is on the ways different district heating systems evolve and how various segments of an LTS develop. We have used a mixed-methods approach and the empirical material in this study builds on municipal documents and annual reports of energy companies, an online survey to energy companies, and qualitative interviews with representatives from energy companies and municipalities. Our results show that private companies are overrepresented in small and shrinking municipalities, and that they develop their business models around small systems to keep them profitable. Instead, municipal owned companies face several challenges concerning capacity, requirements, and economic profitability. From an LTS-perspective, the analysis shows how different actors in the segments adopt different strategies to manage stagnation, leading to segments drifting apart.

In the European Union, energy democracy (ED) is considered a socially desirable policy goal. One way to achieve ED is through empowering local communities to become agents of value change who can pursue more sustainable and equitable energy provision with community energy initiatives (CEI). However, such people-driven value change is complex in nature. CEIs are multifaceted sociotechnical systems that bring together sets of values and are composed of agents (i.e., people), technologies (e.g., solar panels), and institutions (e.g., renewable energy policies). Yet not much research is conducted into how values relate and overlap within this complex nexus of people - technology - institutions on a pathway to democratizing the energy sector through civic participation. In this paper, we spotlight value relationality to capture the diversity in the value landscape of people-driven energy transitions. We claim that each sociotechnical system has "climate" of its own, or value dynamics, induced by interrelating values. We propose an account that captures value dynamics, explores value sets brought together by the different sociotechnical components of CEIs and investigates various ways in which these value sets interrelate. To elucidate value dynamics in the context of CEIs, we have conducted a literature review, a content analysis of regional, national (i.e., Dutch), and EU policies, and expert interviews in two illustrative case studies. We finalize the paper with recommendations for further research on value dynamics in CEIs across various sociotechnical contexts.

In response to concerns about climate change and fossil fuel reliance, Swedish national policy has set the ambitious goal of a fossil fuel independent transport fleet by 2030, opening up a widespread debate on renewable fuel choice. Across sectors and regions, this debate inspires competing visions for how this transition can be achieved. Using sociotechnical imaginaries for a theoretical background, this paper will examine two competing visions in the case of urban public transport in Linkoping, Sweden. While the biogas sociotechnical imaginary is based on the socio-material reality of the existing local infrastructure system, the electricity imaginary is gaining widespread support including from national and international interests. Using interviews with fourteen key actors and document analysis, this paper seeks to understand how local actors understand biogas and electric buses as competing technologies and how they mobilize these antagonistic imaginaries in their own visions of the future. Most often, actors mobilize both the biogas and the electric imaginary alongside each other, suggestion an attempt at reconciling them at the local level. This reconciliation sheds light on the challenge of applying national imaginaries to local cases and indicates that the complexity of multi-level systems must be considered in large scale sustainability transitions.

The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from the building sector has had only limited success so far. In Sweden, the uptake of highly energy efficient buildings such as passive houses has been very patchy, although some regions perform much better than others. This article investigates the interlinkage of organizational structures of housing companies with techno-material characteristics of such buildings, as one of the factors of this uneven development. Empirically, the paper studies two passive house companies in their regional settings in Sweden. The results show that technological characteristics of passive houses co-develop with organizational changes in housing companies such as new types of economic investment calculations, business models, project planning and energy modelling tools. The organizational re-making of housing companies can be seen as a crucial step in the transition to a sustainable housing sector.

The City of Stockholm aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2030 by compensating for residual emissions using bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). Relying heavily on negative emissions to reach the target, the city's strategy presents an interesting case of net-zero climate policymaking. Based on the analysis of interviews, City Council debates, and policy documents, the Stockholm case underscores the importance of understanding municipal climate policy in a multi-level policy setting, where the ability to govern emissions varies heavily between sectors depending on politics and policy at other levels of governance. Both waste incineration and road transport are perceived to include hard-to-abate emissions in 2030, partly due to governance linkages involving regional, national, and EU-level governing bodies. The energy utility, Stockholm Exergi, plans to implement BECCS, with funding from the EU and other public and private sources, at a heat and power plant. The unique opportunity to use BECCS as part of the city's net-zero target has made it possible to advance the net-zero goal from 2040 to 2030. However, there are risks that relying on BECCS may muffle public debate on what constitutes residual emissions in the city, subsequently leading to smaller municipal investments in emission reductions. Additionally, there are risks that the schedule for implementing BECCS is overly optimistic, meaning goal fulfilment may be threatened. However, this risk is not isolated to BECCS; similar risks are associated with combining fossil fuels with CCS. We recommend that the city critically examines the residual emissions, considers separate targets instead of a net-zero goal, and conducts risk assessments of key mitigation technologies to maintain its status as climate policy forerunner.

The number of consumers producing electricity at home, i.e., “prosumers”, is rapidly increasing in many European countries. This article analyses the electricity consumption and energy-saving behaviours of households that own photovoltaic (PV) systems in Sweden. Earlier studies of how home production of electricity affects consumption patterns are few and their results are mixed. We interviewed prosumers in Sweden and collected electricity-consumption data one year before and after they installed PVs. The differences between households were large and no general behavioural change could be detected. The interviews indicated that awareness of the energy system increased among all prosumers, but led to no substantial changes in how or when activities were performed. Most prosumers thought that the benefits of shifting their electricity load to other times were too small. The changes prosumers did make mostly concerned smaller adjustments. Households that increased their consumption justified this by their access to “free” electricity. Automation, i.e., using a timer, was relatively unknown or not used when known.

Examining renovation processes having reduced energy consumption as an explicit goal, this article considers how energy efficiency is made part of renovation processes, focusing on the planning and design phase. Interviews and participant observations of meetings have been conducted. Applying a framework developed in practice theory, we demonstrate the importance of understanding routines, technology, meanings, and knowledge in order to understand why renovation processes repeat themselves and why a renovation practice are hard to change. The analysis shows that the professionals were only engaged in decisions in relation to their own specialized areas, which benefited established solutions. The existing technical infrastructure, such as the HVAC shafts and the district heating system, largely determined what issues were up for discussion. It was clear that practical know-how were valued much higher than theoretical knowledge. The meaning of an energy efficient renovations for the professionals was to reduce the energy consumed as much as possible in every renovated building. With this in mind, we were surprised by how little energy efficiency was on the agenda. We can conclude that there was nothing in the studied processes that could trigger changes and dislodge the inertia of the practice. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The European Union cap-and-trade emissions trading system (EU ETS) faces two challenges in the context of the European Green Deal. First, to meet the Paris temperature target, emissions in the energy and industrial sectors must fall to net-zero and then even become net-negative. Second, there is a concern that excessive CO2 price spikes and volatility on this path will jeopardize the political acceptance and support for emissions trading as a climate policy instrument. Conditional supply of carbon removal credits (CRCs) to support dynamic carbon price caps would make it possible to stabilize the market in the transition from positive to net-negative emissions trading while keeping the net-emissions path unchanged. CRCs would be assigned for carbon removal achieved for example with methods like Direct Air Carbon Capture and Storage or Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage and would be used by companies under the EU ETS to compensate for their emissions. However, we suggest that there would be no direct exchange between emitting companies under the EU ETS and carbon removal companies, i.e., the demand and supply side of CRCs, during an initial phase. Instead, we suggest assigning an institutional mandate to for example a carbon central bank (CCB) to organize the supply of CRCs. Under this mandate, carbon removal would be procured, would be translated into a corresponding number of CRCs, and a fraction of it could be auctioned to the market at a later point in time, provided that market prices exceed a certain (dynamic) price cap.

This article presents new empirical research on what it takes to provide enduring access to affordable, reliable and useful electricity services for all. We analyze and synthesize the long-term experiences with three different systems for village-scale solar power supply in India, Senegal and Kenya. Since this scale of electricity provision forms part of village infrastructure, it requires particular types of knowledge, policies and support mechanisms. This research therefore investigates how village-scale solar systems can be designed, implemented, sustained and replicated in ways that make them accessible and useful for the community members. Drawing on a socio-technical and practice-oriented approach, we show that the electricity system’s degree of adaptedness to its social context affects many important qualities of the system such as the relevance of the available electricity services for the people, the system’soperational and economic sustainability and the potential for replication. Achieving such adaptation notably requires a flexible approach on the part of implementers, funders and local actors before, during and after implementation. We also show the need for institutionalization of decentralized electricity provision, discuss the current ambiguities in policies, regulations and funding mechanisms for village-scale solar power, and provide recommendations to policy makers and donors.

Over the past 30 years, several sustainability-profiled districts have been developed in Sweden with high ambitions for the energy systems, such as Hammarby Sjöstad in Stockholm and Western Harbor in Malmö. Research into energy systems in urban districts is interdisciplinary and therefore spread over different areas, which means that an overview of the current state of knowledge and lessons learned is lacking. This semi-systematic literature review aims to provide an overview of previous research on the planning, development, and evaluation of energy systems in sustainability-profiled districts in Sweden. The review of 70 journal and conference articles reveals seven research themes in the interdisciplinary nexus of energy systems and sustainability-profiled districts: (1) Conceptualizations and critique of sustainability-profiled districts, (2) Evaluations of energy goals and requirements, (3) Technical and economic assessments of heating and electricity systems, (4) Integration of innovative (energy) solutions in urban planning, (5) Stakeholder perspectives on energy systems, (6) Stakeholder collaboration on the building and the district level, (7) Governance and policy instruments for sustainable urban development and energy systems. We use a socio-technical ecology approach to critically discuss the existing research on energy systems planning, development, and evaluation to guide future research on energy systems development in urban districts. An increase in integrated approaches across all identified research themes and relationships between scales, phases, and impacts are discussed as central observations that can guide future research. Future research is needed on new or better-adapted energy indicators, the inclusion, perspectives, and roles of (new) stakeholders, and the consideration of ecology and nature in research on the planning, development, and evaluation of energy systems.

This empirical study analyses policy change in the area of European Union energy efficiency policy by applying the advocacy coalition framework (ACF). The energy efficiency directive (EED) and its provisions on individual metering and billing (IMB) is used as a case study. IMB provisions have rendered substantial debate for almost a decade and the provisions were amended following successful advocacy work of the coalition opposing IMB. The study confirms recent developments of the ACF theory that internal shocks are important for policy change. Policy change followed other pathways too, particularly policy-oriented learning. As for policy-oriented learning, it was manifested in different ways, e.g. the acceptance of the core beliefs and proposals for amending the IMB provisions put forward by the coalition opposing IMB by a majority of Member States in the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament and the proponents of IMB. Besides contributing to development of scientific theory, the knowledge provided in the paper can inform various stakeholders to better shape their future strategies in advocacy work in European Union policy making and national policy implementation.

The EU legislators have agreed that the energy efficiency first (EE1) principle is made legally binding for Member States, to apply in policy, planning and major investment decisions. Through the EE1 principle, energy efficiency is to be made a priority in European Union (EU) energy and climate policy, providing what has been a missing link in fully implementing two other guiding principles of EU energy and climate policy: costeffectiveness and consumer protection. In this article, I conduct an argumentative discourse analysis to better understand the politics of the EE1 principle in EU energy and climate policy. Two different discourses with a set of storylines were identified in the negotiations on the EE1 principle. The first focuses on multiple benefits of energy efficiency and a stronger role for the EE1 principle. The other focuses on climate change mitigation and a weaker role for the EE1 principle. The Council Presidency and the European Commission used discursive techniques such as frame polarisation, frame disconnection and frame incorporation to overcome these dualities. The description of storylines, discourse coalitions and discursive interaction strategies can help policymakers and other stakeholders become more aware of their own and others argumentation on energy efficiency and how these could be changed, thus help policymakers and stakeholders better shape their strategies in future advocacy and policymaking.

This paper explores individual and collective agenda-setting processes in demonstration projects. It contributes to transition studies by showing how multi-actor collaboration in demonstrations and the resulting alignment of agendas aid social embedding of new technologies. The research questions address, first, the extent to which individual actors can dominate shared agenda-setting, and second, how the experience of participating in demonstrations influences actors' individual agendas. An analytical model operationalizes agendas based on an adjusted multiple streams approach of problems, solutions, and institutional contexts. The model is applied in a comparative analysis of two electrified distribution truck demonstrations. All data presented were collected in 25 semi-structured interviews and an online workshop. The analysis shows how leading actors may dominate agenda-setting dynamics by imposing considerable influence on the selection of problems and specification of solutions. However, it also illustrates how other involved actors can influence the configuration of technological solutions during the demonstration project. The analysis results highlight how collaborative agenda-setting can lead to the creation of coherent packages between multiple streams, leading to changes in the individual agendas of the involved actors.

The current energy systems are undergoing fundamental changes driven by the climate crisis, unfolding digitalisation and increasing calls for a more active citizens' engagement. The impact of these ongoing trends on the future energy system, however, is far from straightforward. Although there is an increasing shift towards a decentralisation, it is not clear yet how exactly this new decentralised configuration will unfold and materialise. In this article we explore the rationales behind current trends towards a more decentralised electricity system. Given the developments in the electricity system, our study centres on emerging initiatives led by citizens and their values. Theoretically, we first mobilise the notion of socio-technical system as constituted and reproduced by actors, institutions, and technology, operating based on certain shared principles. We use this lens to describe the past and current energy system organisation. Secondly, based on two dimensions of value orientation and steering direction we define four emerging ideal-types socio-technical decentralisation configurations. We examine possible pathways of change, and the institutional, actor and technological preconditions they require, to become predominant forms of decentralisation. We conclude that although all forms of decentralisation may potentially contribute to low carbon objectives, they are likely to co-evolve catering to diverse system needs and the citizen requirements simultaneously.

This paper presents the results of a globally distributed survey on policies for incentivizing bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). The current lack of policy incentives to support the implementation of BECCS constitutes a major deployment barrier. Therefore, scientists and policymakers are now debating the optimal BECCS policy framework. Previous studies have presented theoretical analyses of policy options to spur deployment, yet despite the considerable influence of experts on policy processes, very few studies have explored expert opinions. Drawing on an online survey of experts (N = 46), we explore their policy preferences and whether those preferences differ or converge between experts from different working sectors. The results show that a tax and refund scheme, a flat-rate subsidy, and reverse auctioning are considered more suitable than other measures. Furthermore, most experts agree that rather than a stand-alone policy, a policy mix would be needed in order to support BECCS deployment. Several experts propose a sequence of policies, moving from publicly funded supply-push policies in the short term to budget-neutral demand-pull policies in the longer term. Regarding various subsidy schemes, respondents favor investment subsidies or results-based subsidies based on stored biogenic carbon dioxide. The relatively minor differences in the response patterns between groups of experts suggest that a consensus on a preferred BECCS policy pathway might be forming across different sectors and interest groups. Therefore, our results could inform policymakers on policy instruments for BECCS that are considered most suitable by experts and thus help to shape the policy pathway for BECCS.