How do network companies seek legitimacy for public value trade offs?

How do network companies seek legitimacy for public value trade offs?: The case of injecting biogas

Steenhuisen, B.M. (TU Delft Organisation & Governance)
de Bruijne, M.L.C. (TU Delft Organisation & Governance)

2016

Network companies fulfill a critical role in the energy transition. The is article provides an empirical study of this role of a Dutch national gas network company connecting a biogas producer. This project requires choices about many intertwined technical and institutional variables. Choices involve multiple, potentially competing public values like safety, cost-efficiency, sustainability and non-discrimination. A formal governance structure provides generic guidelines for network companies about how to act in the public interest, but we argue that unclarity remains on how to trade-off public values. In these instances, a network company seeks legitimacy for the choices that are made. Via an in-depth case study on the injection of biogas we explored how a network company interpreted its public role and how public value trade-off s were made. We conclude that legitimacy is sought and found in a mixture of formal and informal ways both inside the network company as well as outside. Although the governance regime allowed the network company to take a leading role in the innovative project, it failed as a starting point to claim legitimacy. These findings provide food for thought on how to institutionally embed the role of network companies in the energy transition.

governance
network companies
biogas
public values
legitimicy

http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:73460ad1-60b0-4935-99d1-37597c58ff5c

2017-12-31

1783-5917

Competition and Regulation in Network Industries, 17 (2), 181-201

Institutional Repository

journal article

© 2016 B.M. Steenhuisen, M.L.C. de Bruijne