In order for the Netherlands to reach CO2 neutrality by 2050, large investments in zero emission technologies are needed. These investments would comprise out of renewable energy generation, higher energy efficiency alternatives and electrification of end uses. Although climate mitigation has become an ever growing societal concern since the ratification of "het klimaatakkoord", progress in the industrial sector has been seriously lagging in the Netherlands. In 2021 the reduction of CO2 emissions in the Netherlands stagnated and the emissions of the industrial sector actually slightly rose. So too in the Port of Rotterdam, where the chlorine cluster is not showing any significant CO2 reductions. There are several potential explanations why there is a gap between what should be invested and what actually is invested. They define the gap as, ’the apparent reality that some technologies that would pay off for adopters are, nevertheless, not adopted’. So, why do decision makers under invest in zero emission technologies? The explanations of fall into two broad categories:
•Market barriers
•Behavioural barriers

Following the problem situation, this thesis focused on researching to what extent market & behavioural barriers contribute to the investment gap in the Port of Rotterdam Chlorine cluster, by incorporating both market and behavioural barriers in a quantitative investment model. The incorporation of these barriers in the model result in a range of investment types, some of them non-optimal and varying in perspectives on valuing the future. By simulating technology adoption under the assumption of this range of varying configurations of market and behavioural barriers, it is possible to determine the effect of those two categories of barriers on technology adoption at the PoR chlorine cluster. The obtained insights of this research feed into the larger study of quantitative decision models for the industrial sector. Where the following main research question is answered:
What is the effect of market and behavioural barriers on zero emission technology adoption at the PoR chlorine cluster?

To answer the main research question, the model represents the PoR chlorine cluster on a highly detailed level and bases it's technical system's configuration on a thorough plant-process-product & zero-emission technology inventarisation. These two inventarisations give the current and possible future configuration of the PoR chlorine cluster's technical system. Consequently, this makes it possible to explicitly model the technology stock at the chlorine cluster and determine technology adoption on an asset level. The market & behavioural barriers are represented by 8 evaluation types. These evaluation types represent 8 varying configurations of the market & behavioural barriers. Consequently, a scenario analysis was conducted with the model.
The scenario analysis resulted in transition pathways, total CO2 emissions and total cash flows between 2022-2050. The model results show that the incorporation of market and behavioural barriers lead to postponed adoption of zero emission technology adoption. This is reflected by the lower number of years that these alternatives are installed between 2022 and 2050. The lower adoption lead to an increase of 288% total CO2 emissions between 2022-2050, compared to the optimal solution. Underneath, the key findings from the model results are presented…



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