Neglecting exit doors: How does regret cost shape the irreversible execution of renewable energy megaprojects?

The energy transition process nowadays is characterized by the replacement of fossil fuels-based means of production with renewable energy (RE). Alongside the diffusion of decentralized RE, this process is associated with the increased promotion of RE megaprojects. Such megaprojects, however, are often shaped by path-dependent lock-ins and thus...

Value Change, Value Conflict, and Policy Innovation: Understanding the Opposition to the Market-Based Economic Dispatch of Electricity Scheme in India Using the Multiple Streams Framework

As policy innovation is essential for upscaling responsible innovation, understanding its relationship to value change(s) occurring or sought in sociotechnical systems is imperative. In this study, we ask: what are the different types of values in the policy process? And, how does value change influence policy innovation? We propose a...

Co-creation as a social process for unlocking sustainable heating transitions in Europe

Providing heat is a key aspect of social life and a necessity for comfort and health in cold climates. Even though heat accounts for a large proportion of worldwide carbon emissions and is the largest energy end-use, it has remained largely untouched by efforts to decarbonize. Efforts to do so meet significant economic, social-psychological,...

Upholding safety in future energy systems: The need for systemic risk assessment

This paper argues that energy systems are becoming increasingly complex, and illustrates how new types of hazards emerge from an ongoing transition towards renewable energy sources. It shows that the energy sector relies heavily on risk assessment methods that are analytic, and that systemic methods provide important additional insights.Acase...

The geopolitics of renewables: New board, new game

This policy perspective sums up the main input of four members of the Research Panel for IRENA's Global Commission on the Geopolitics of the Energy Transformation. The geographic and technical characteristics of renewable energy systems are fundamentally different from those of coal, oil, and natural gas. This has implications for interstate...

Risk mitigation and investability of a U-PHS project in the Netherlands

We review the status of a 1.4 GW, 8 GWh underground pumped hydro storage (U-PHS) project in the southern Netherlands, which has been under development since the 1980s. Its history shows how the prospect of a large-scale U-PHS for The Netherlands (a country whose proverbial flatness prohibits PHS) has been attractive in every decade, based on...

Facilitating energy transition through energy commons: An application of socio-ecological systems framework for integrated community energy systems

Integrated Community Energy Systems (ICES) are an emerging local energy system focusing on the collective use of distributed energy resources (DER). These socio-technical systems (STSs) have a high potential to advance the transition towards socially inclusive, environmentally-friendly energy systems and to stimulate the local economy. While...