Print Email Facebook Twitter Reflections on the role of energy network companies in the energy transition Title Reflections on the role of energy network companies in the energy transition Author Steenhuisen, B.M. De Bruijne, M.L.C. Faculty Technology, Policy and Management Department Multi Actor Systems Date 2015-08-13 Abstract Background Energy network companies are commonly attributed the public task to help society in becoming greener in the domain of energy. This extra public task has high costs and comes with high uncertainties. It may also compete with existing public tasks of network companies. When network companies are involved in local green initiatives, they encounter dilemmas and need to arrange trade-offs among multiple public values. It may also compete with existing tasks of network companies. Therefore, these network companies can face dilemmas when involved in local green initiatives. The aim of this paper is to reflect on the role of energy network companies in the face of these dilemmas. What is the role of energy network companies in coping with conflicting public values when helping local initiatives that create a greener energy system? Methods We answer this question via an essay that reflects on existing research in the Dutch energy sector. Our answer is derived from the fields of law, politics, policy, economics and engineering about the role of network companies. Results and discussion We argue that these five perspectives leave the role of energy network companies in the energy transition under-articulated. Our additional answer is based on our own empirical research that focuses on how network companies currently deal with dilemmas between multiple public tasks. Conclusion We provide an analytical framework that enables a way of understanding the role of network companies in the struggle with dilemmas and raise several points of discussion to that might refocus efforts of researchers and practitioners to elucidate the role of network companies. Subject energy network companiesenergy transitionlawpoliticspolicyeconomicsengineeringOA-Fund TU Delft To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:f023941f-a79f-493c-9131-46934ce1746b Publisher BioMed Central ISSN 2192-0567 Source https://doi.org/10.1186/s13705-015-0050-z Source Energy, Sustainability and Society, 5, 2015 Part of collection Institutional Repository Document type journal article Rights © 2015 The Author(s)This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative CommonsAttribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. Files PDF Steenhuisen_2015.pdf 367.83 KB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:f023941f-a79f-493c-9131-46934ce1746b/datastream/OBJ/view