This research aims to design and analyse possible system configurations for a system in which wind energy from a Dutch wind farm, supplemented with electricity from the grid, is utilized to produce green hydrogen using an electrolyser, including options for transport of hydrogen to the consumer, and to perform an economic analysis on these system configurations. A design is made using MATLAB and Simulink software, for two system sizes; a 10 MW balance of plant system and a 1.4 MW balance of plant system. The design is made for two types of electrolysers, being an alkaline electrolyser and a PEM electrolyser. System configurations are modelled for operations on a minimum load utilizing all available wind energy, and for operations on nominal load continuously. It was found that the alkaline electrolyser is more energy-efficient and cost-efficient than the PEM electrolyser in this system. Including options for transport, it was found that the 10 MW hydrogen production system has the lowest levelized cost of hydrogen and is the most cost-efficient option. When operating on nominal load, the cost of hydrogen was slightly lower than when operating on minimum load using all available wind energy and restricting the use of grid electricity to a minimum. The cost of hydrogen was found to be sensitive to changes in the electricity price as well as changes in capital cost of the electrolyser. The most cost-effective hydrogen production, producing hydrogen at a cost of 2.95 euro per kg, was found to be the 10 MW alkaline system, operating at nominal load.

The North Sea has significant potential in becoming a green energy hub, due to its remarkable offshore wind potential, and could therefore facilitate the energy transition to a net-zero energy system in Europe in the coming decades. In this transition, hydrogen is also predicted to play a key role, due to its ability to transport and store substantial amounts of energy. Previous studies have shown that for large offshore wind capacities and substantial distances from the shore, transporting the produced energy in the form of molecules (converting the electricity to hydrogen) via dedicated pipelines would be a more cost-effective option than using electricity cables and converting electricity to hydrogen. This transport could be achieved by developing new hydrogen-dedicated infrastructure or reusing existing natural gas pipelines, which is a cost-effective alternative. This research study aims to determine the potential for repurposing existing gas infrastructure in the North Sea for hydrogen transport, taking into consideration that this infrastructure will still have to transport natural gas to the shore over the coming years. Redirecting an amount of this natural gas to other, neighboring pipelines creates the possibility for existing pipelines to be freed up for hydrogen transportation, and therefore achieve parallel transmission of green hydrogen and natural gas from the Dutch North Sea to the shore. Consequently, the purpose of this thesis project is to examine the geographical, technical, and economic feasibility of large-scale green hydrogen transportation (produced offshore with green energy from wind turbines), with parallel natural gas transport, via new and already existing gas infrastructure in the North Sea, by 2030. The first aspect to be analyzed was the geographical configuration of such a system. For that purpose, different possible configurations for parallel transport of hydrogen and natural gas via existing North Sea infrastructure were examined. This analysis indicated that the most suitable scenario, considering the projected timeline and current circumstances, would be repurposing the NGT pipeline for 100% hydrogen transportation (produced from offshore wind search areas 7 and 3), and rerouting the natural gas to the NOGAT pipeline. Both NGT and NOGAT pipelines are parts of the North Sea offshore pipeline system, currently transporting natural gas to the Dutch shore. The next part of the study concerned the physical configuration of the hydrogen transportation system. A component analysis was done, highlighting the most suitable components across the entire system configuration, including the offshore hydrogen production by water electrolysis, its compression, and its transportation via the NGT pipeline among others. Furthermore, a more elaborate analysis was done to determine the project’s technical feasibility, with emphasis being placed on the key aspects of hydrogen compression and transportation, evaluating its flow characteristics and compression requirements. The analysis results showed that transporting hydrogen via the NGT pipeline to the Dutch shore is technically feasible. Based on the analyzed scenario, the maximum hydrogen transport capacity was found to be 7.9 GW, and the total compression capacity 103 MW. During its transportation along the length of the pipeline (253 km), hydrogen experiences a pressure drop of 10.4 bar (65 bar to 55 bar). An economic evaluation of the system was also performed, indicating that the project is feasible from a financial standpoint as well. The LCOH transport for the proposed system, including hydrogen compression and NGT pipeline repurposing costs, was found to be 0.17 €/kg/1000km. The overall conclusion of this study is that reusing existing infrastructure in the North Sea for hydrogen transportation is a physically and technically feasible option, which can be achieved at a competitive cost.

Corporations’ economic activities put significant stress on the environment. In order to limit global warming to 1.5°C, companies need to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. However, shifting the responsibility of decarbonisation from being solely on governments to being shared with these companies is only a recent phenomenon. This study therefore explores how more companies can be stimulated to take climate action. To research this, the steel industry is taken as a case study. This particular industry is responsible for a large share of global emissions and includes many non-European firms which have been shown to trail behind their European counterparts considering climate action. The number of companies committing to the SBTi is defined as a quantifiable metric to track the development of climate action in the sector. Initial findings suggest that companies respond vigorously to financial stimulants like carbon pricing. Moreover, it is found that different stakeholder groups can stimulate the decarbonisation of heavy industry in various ways. Firms require certain factors to be at adequate levels before they commit themselves to deep decarbonisation. As such, governmental agencies can play an important role by ensuring that limiting factors like low-carbon electricity are abundant. Financial institutions can furthermore use their position to limit the financial risk for companies willing to decarbonise, while other stakeholder groups can focus on creating awareness and urgency. Altogether, the study results in a novel attempt to develop a useful agent-based model of a business ecosystem in light of the net zero energy transition. Apart from providing insights to stakeholders on how to effectively stimulate climate action, it functions as a foundation for future academic work on this topic.

Following the Paris Agreement of 2015, Indonesia aims to reduce emissions by 29% by 2030, compared to the business as usual scenario. In Indonesia it is expected that between 2015 and 2030 the electricity demand could triple and the total energy demand could increase by 80%. Bioenergy would account for more than half of all renewable energy in 2030 in Indonesia. However, the expansion of energy crops contributes to negative effects like deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and competition with food production. An other problem Indonesia currently deals with is the large amount of degraded land. A solution to these problems would be to cultivate biomass on degraded land. Bamboo can be used as a biomass feedstock, as it meets all selection requirements to be produced on degraded land. This thesis report quantifies the extent and finds the location of degraded land in Indonesia. Also, the technical and economic potential of bamboo cultivation on the degraded land locations is assessed. The research question that will be answered is: how much degraded land would be needed to cover Indonesia’s electricity demand by 2030, when using bamboo as a biomass feedstock, and how likely is this land available? This research question is answered by first doing a geographic information system (GIS) analysis. Through the QGIS software, the degraded land locations in Indonesia which are suitable for bamboo plantations can be found. This is done by layering multiple datasets on top of each other in four steps. Next, the technoeconomic potential analysis is done by calculating how much degraded land would be needed to cover a certain percentage of Indonesia’s electricity demand by 2030, and calculating the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of different biomass conversion technologies. The results show that between 0.21% and 49.9% of Indonesia’s total land area can be considered degraded according to different scenarios. The suitable area for bamboo plantations lays between the 0.01% and the 13% of Indonesia’s total land area. Using these areas the potential electricity that can be reached lays between the 0.4732 TWh for gasification, 0.3533 TWh for combustion, 0.3506 TWh for anaerobic digestion, and 0.1266 TWh for pyrolysis. The area needed to cover 25% of Indonesia’s electricity demand by 2030 ranges from 2.05.6% of Indonesia’s total land cover when using different conversion technologies. For 100% electricity demand this area increases to the range of 8.122.4% of Indonesia’s total land cover. The LCOE goes from 13 US$ct./kWh for gasification, to 16 US$ct./kWh for combustion, 22 US$ct./kWh for anaerobic digestion, and finally to 45 US$ct./kWh for pyrolysis. The result show that when using the least strict degraded land scenarios, it would be possible to cover a significant amount of Indonesia’s electricity demand. However, it is not likely that these scenarios will be applied. The definition of degraded land, still is not completely clear, and extensive field research needs to be done to validate the degraded land results. This research shows that bamboo cultivation on degraded land for electricity generation in Indonesia might not be applicable to generate large amounts of electricity. Nevertheless, it can be applied on smaller scales and it is a step in the right direction of Indonesia’s energy transition. Finally, some recommendations for future research can be made. First of all, uncertainty exists about the datasets used to assess the extent of degraded land in Indonesia. It is recommended that the datasets are validated through field research. Furthermore, in this research an assumption for the yield of bamboo is made, which can be tested against the actual yield of a bamboo plantation on degraded land in Indonesia. Also, socioeconomic and environmental effects of bamboo plantations are not considered, which provides the opportunity to address these in further research. Finally, other end uses like biofuel, other conversion technologies like cofiring, and pretreatment technologies to enhance the conversion efficiency can be evaluated in more detail in future research.

Most countries have shown their concern towards global warming and made commitments to decrease carbon emissions. Energy usage will have to become more efficient and generated by an increasing amount of sustainable resources. Hard-to-abate industries will require incentives to decarbonize their processes. Research shows that consumer-facing companies (CFCs) are willing to and can incentivize upstream production to decarbonize processes. Literature research concludes that steel, ammonia, methanol and refineries are highly dependent on hydrogen to be decarbonized. Demand sectors of these heavy industries are analyzed to identify potential demand for hydrogen-based products, and whether their value proposition towards consumers increases using hydrogen-based products. Some case studies on CFCs using heavy industry’s products do confirm this. A table with scores per industry is provided to show the relative degree of downstream capability and willingness to decarbonize upstream production. The research shows that the steel sector will be the most applicable industry to be incentivized from a CFC’s perspective, followed by ammonia and to less extent methanol and refineries. CFC initiated decarbonization mechanisms are qualitatively sorted and discussed for applicability on hydrogen-based transition. The mechanisms holding the highest potential to initiate upstream decarbonization are discussed regarding applicability for the steel industry. Business model innovation, industry & sector level collaboration, performance standards and industry & market standards are considered to have the highest potential among CFC mechanisms to reduce risks in transitioning upstream industries.

Nonintrusive Load Monitoring (NILM) can be used to disaggregate household energy usage collected from a central meter to the level of individual appliances, but has so far mostly been applied in controlled, small-scale settings. Further potential such as the application for energy efficiency classification and management have remained largely untapped. In this research a machine learning model was developed and deployed to determine energy consumption, usage pattern and energy efficiency characteristics of real-life dishwasher usage based on smart meter data. The developed NILM system was deployed on a full year of smart meter data for nearly 130.000 households in the Netherlands. The analysis was accompanied by a survey to gain additional information on the households usage behaviour. The average energy consumption for all households was found to be 1.18kWh per wash, with dishwashers used 240 times per year on average. Dependencies are shown for household size, washing temperature, machine efficiency label as well as time of day, week and year. It was estimated that 9 in 10 households could reduce their dishwasher energy consumption, with an average saving potential of more than 30% per year. The developed method showed to be suitable to gain insight into average electricity consumption and usage patterns on an appliance level, non-intrusively and at large-scale. Additional survey data was shown to provide comparative insight between different user groups. The developed framework can be easily expanded for other major appliances and could be used to drive tailored consumer feedback on energy efficiency improvements within households.

What are the national and provincial economic potentials of ocean thermal energy conversion in relation to the provincial electricity demand fulfilment in Indonesia? When we are talking about the economic potential of OTEC in Indonesia, we are talking about potential as a result of different possible configurations. On the national level, the economic potentials of both cost assumptions are more than enough to fulfil the total electricity demand of the country. However, Indonesia seizes an immensely broad area of land and sea. A big part of the potential lies outside the provincial boundaries, far away from demand centres. Still, when only the provincial potentials are considered, the total economic potential is higher than the demand. This does not necessarily mean that the available resource is accessible by the demand centres, though. The available resources of OTEC are not distributed evenly throughout the country. Some areas are blessed with remarkably good resources in abundance while the other areas are not so lucky with the resources. Hence, the stations are selected based on the proximity to the demand centres. It turns out that based on the results of the thesis, it is not possible to fully supply the electricity demand on the provincial level in Indonesia solely by OTEC electricity production of the selected stations. It is indeed possible for some areas to do that, but in other areas, there is no economic potential at all. However, it is not likely that a single resource will ever be used to cover 100% of supply. In this sense, there is a huge opportunity for OTEC to enter the energy landscape and become the provider of baseload electricity

In order to determine how the energy sector of the Netherlands can or should look in the future, energy scenarios are used to explore possible alternative futures. Many scenarios for the Netherlands exist, but a classification of contemporary Dutch electricity scenarios is missing. Additionally, agent-based modelling (ABM) has often been proposed for energy scenario development as it is able to model the uncertain behaviour of energy companies, which is not possible in more traditional energy scenario models. However, a recent publication of the impacts of the Dutch climate agreement seems to suggest that agent-based modelling is not yet used to develop energy scenarios in the Netherlands. This research first classified Dutch energy scenarios for 2030 which are focused on the electricity sector. Additionally, it analysed two Dutch energy scenario with EMLab, an agent-based model. The agent-based model was able to replicate the scenario results when the inputs of that scenario were used. Additionally, it showed how uncertain behaviour would cause overinvestments and what measures can be used to impact this behaviour. The results show that ABM can and should be used to support scenario development for the Netherlands.

reement, adopted by virtually all 195 countries of the United Nations, is a binding deal with targets to keep global warming of the earth beneath 2∘C, and reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in 2050 by at least 80% compared to 1990. These targets require significant reductions in energy consumption and switch to carbon free renewable energy sources. Changing to renewable energy sources brings several complications to the electricity system. Supply and demand of electricity need to match at any time. The intermittent nature of renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind, requires energy storage and need to be balanced with dispatchable power generation. Passenger cars could offer dispatchable power as they are parked for 95% of the time. Especially fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs) connected to the grid could offer this service in a clean and efficient way. Could parked and unused grid connected FCEVs replace the positive dispatchable power plants to balance 100% renewable energy systems? This research investigates how future 100% renewable national electricity, heating and transport systems can be balanced with the use of hydrogen production and storage, and grid connected FCEVs. A model is developed that simulates the future energy systems of Germany, France, Spain, Great Britain, Denmark and Belgium. The energy systems include electricity generation and consumption, road transport, hot water and space heating. Road transport vehicles are battery electric vehicles (BEVs), FCEVs or a combination of both. Electricity and hydrogen are the only energy carriers. Electricity is mainly supplied by solar and wind power. Hot water and space heating is mainly supplied by solar thermal energy and electric heat pumps. Electricity generation and consumption profiles and temperature data of 2014, 2015 and 2016 serve as inputs. The future 100% renewable energy scenarios are based on scenarios published by government agencies, research institutions or transmission system operators. Demand response heating (DRH) is analysed and applied to all cases. Interconnecting the electricity grids of Germany and France is also investigated. Hydrogen production and grid connected FCEVs can balance national electricity grids. Electrolysers can act as negative balancing power consuming excess electricity of intermittent renewable energy sources to produce hydrogen. Roughly 0.4-0.6 GW of electrolyser capacity is required to balance 1 GW of renewables in the investigated countries. This requirement can be lower when curtailment is applied and the installed capacity of renewables is slightly increased. Hydrogen can be stored locally in high pressure storage tanks or at large scale in underground salt caverns. A typical salt cavern can store around 6 million kg of working gas. Per TWh of final energy consumption approximately 1-2.5 million kg of hydrogen storage capacity is required. Conventional positive balancing plants such as gas turbines could be replaced by FCEVs connected to the electricity grid. Peak backup demands can be balanced with 25 - 50% of the FCEV passenger fleet, which corresponds to 12.5 - 25% of the total passenger car fleet. The utilisation of FCEVs for V2G varies from 2.5 to 8%. Between 7% and 14% of the electricity consumption in a country is supplied by grid connected FCEVs. Hydrogen can be locally produced at hydrogen fuelling stations or electrolysers can be installed near large scale electricity generation sites or salt caverns where hydrogen can be produced and stored directly. Hydrogen fuelling stations need an average dispensing capacity of 3000 kg/day (∼600 passenger FCEVs/day) to cover all fuelling demands except peak demands.

Geothermal sources could provide society with clean and renewable energy nearly eternally. Geothermal district heating, in particular, could play a significant role in the energy transition. Although the application has been implemented to some extent, further upscaling is challenging due to various economic, technical and institutional conditions, resulting in barriers. This thesis presents a comparative, qualitative analysis of these barriers for three European countries (Germany, Hungary and The Netherlands). Through Energy statistics analysis, document analysis and interviews with experts in the field, these barriers are identified, decomposed, and their impact is analysed. It was found that barriers causing economic non-viability of geothermal district heating, poor insulation of buildings, and various regulatory and legal barriers are significant factors that prevent further upscaling. Finally, a set of policy recommendations is presented with the ambition to achieve a ten per cent share of geothermal district heating in the household, public and commercial services heat sector of these countries by 2030. To that end, European countries' governments are recommended: to restructure heat price regulation schemes; to reduce subsidies for conventional heating systems; to increase and reserve subsidies for geothermal district heating specifically; to provide attractive incentives for energy efficiency improvements in buildings; and to establish clear legal and regulatory arrangements for geothermal district heating systems.

The manufacturing processes of the Dutch ceramic plants are energy intensive with high temperatures. Most heat is generated by firing natural gas, which causes CO2 emissions. According to the Dutch Climate Agreement, the ceramic plants need to abate their CO2 emissions by 2030. This study intends to provide an analysis of applicable decarbonisation options from a techno-economic perspective. The most cost-beneficial decarbonisation options are analysed by marginal abatement cost curves and evaluated by a business case analysis. The results show that in 2030 a combination of industrial heat pumps, green gas from onsite digestion and CCS are most cost-beneficial and can theoretically abate the total CO2 emissions by 96%. However, uncertainties are present and the supply of feedstock and fuels should be considered in the decision-making process. Next steps for research could be applying a socio-technical approach or a detailed case study of one or more plants.

National and international attention, both academic and otherwise, to local climate actions and policy usually focuses on large/mega-cities. However, given current progress, this represents an oversight when approaching the energy transition – in particular, due to the large proportion of the urban population living in cities smaller than 500,000 people. As a result, the main question of this study is: What are good practices for Dutch SMCs with populations between 50,000-250,000 and are there demonstrable effects linking them to achieving climate targets? In this thesis, I analyzed good practices to achieve climate mitigation targets from 13 Dutch municipalities and assessed what correlations are possible linking good practice to emissions reductions using both quantitative and qualitative indicators. I found that there are several good practices available to local governments implemented. Furthermore, the governance mode of these good practices reflected mainly ‘governing by enabling’, however it was found that within municipal climate documents that other forms of governance were also prevalent and widely used. Finally, it was found that current monitoring data is insufficient to link those implemented good practices to municipal emissions reductions.

The global wicked problem of climate change forces us to policymaking, implementation, and climate action. In a hopeful attempt to reach the ambitious Paris Agreement goals, science indicates that collaborative action and science-based targets are required. Consequently, the political arena recognizes the importance of actors beyond national governments for collaborative climate action. These non-state and subnational actors could have a great impact on global emissions reductions, but current targets and pledges are often subject to a lack of transparency and greenwashing practices. In addition, current commitments and actions are often too modest in ambition to close the emission gap. As a response, a plethora of International Cooperative Initiatives (ICIs) has arisen. This research focuses on the promising and important role of corporates in non-state climate action, by assessing corporate determinants for participation in the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi). To date, the SBTi is the most prominent ICI in the corporate landscape with more than 1,500 companies that are committed to science-based targets. Due to its popularity and rapid growth of the initiative, the SBTi evidently contributes to global emission reductions. With their step-wise process to science-based target commitment, development, and validation, the SBTi promises to prevent ”the worst effects of climate change”. To track the progression of this hopeful promise, a handful of studies have been conducted on the SBTi’s emission mitigation. However, the literature on the SBTi has remained inextensive. Furthermore, why corporates participate in the initiative was unaddressed. This thesis work is pioneering in the sense that it creates a novel, important, and relevant contribution to fulfilling this knowledge gap, by identifying determining factors for participation in the SBTi. Thereby, assessing associations be- tween firm characteristics and SBTi participation, in addition to whether and how these firm characteristics and several motives, reasons, and drivers cause a corporate to participate. To this end, we have constructed a mixed-method study with a sequential explanatory design that entailed econometric statistical analysis and interviews. The group of corporates selected for the study was the Fortune 500 of the year 2015, which marks the start of the SBTi. We conclude that this research design is a good fit for the type of study which aims to find relations between firm characteristics, motives, reasons, drivers, and SBTi membership, or climate action in general. Mostly because our approach allowed for a more comprehensive picture of relevant factors to participate in the SBTi, compared to extant literature that is often lacking on detailed information due to exploratory designs that assess association rather than causation. We, therefore, want to shed light on the added value of semi-structured interviews in this work and potential future work, despite some of our main limitations of data availability, relatively small sample sizes, and selection bias. We found that determining factors for corporates to participate in the SBTi relate to the concepts of Legitimacy, Market Success, Social Insurance and Organizational Culture. The latter added an angle that did not seem covered by the concepts derived from previous studies, while this concept became one of the most influential but controversial in management and organization studies. Our findings show that the pressure of stakeholders such as investors, competitors, the U.S. government, employees, end-consumers, and purchasers is an important determinant for corporates to participate; whereby we have shown that joining the SBTi is unexpectedly mainly driven by purchasers rather than end-consumers in the U.S. at this point. In addition, competitive pressures cause a company to join since corporates want to maintain their front-running position, find peer benchmarking important, and are experiencing peer pressure within their sector. Furthermore, a corporate’s perception of internal and external leadership is important in deciding to join the SBTi. In particular, a firm’s strategy and CEO determine whether the corporate wants to be a leader by joining the SBTi or not. On top of that, we found that the presence of a sustainability committee increases the likeliness of a firm becoming a SBTi member since it connects sustainability expertise in the organization that is needed to feed top management so that sustainability decisions can be made. Interestingly, contrary to our expectations, our results show that corporates in the energy sector are not the most likely to join the SBTi. Albeit those companies are facing impressive stakeholder pressures, they often choose to lobby against future policies rather than set science-based targets. Moreover, we expect conservative corporate culture and the maturity of a sustainability program to influence the decision to join the SBTi. To specify, we believe that conservative corporates, possibly with a mature sustainability program, tend to stick to their system-centric targets and management processes rather than participating in the SBTi. Overall, our pioneering research outcomes contribute to the inextensive body of academic literature on the SBTi, and it enriches the extant literature on ICIs participation, voluntary initiative participation, and corporate climate action in general. Moreover, the implications of this research are important to policymakers, government, as well as corporates, and the SBTi, in terms of responding to the determinants for SBTi participation. Especially because it is expected that the number of SBTi members will exponentially grow soon, thereby further enhancing the initiative’s prominent character. In addition, we argue that SBTi membership is and will not be a form of corporate greenwashing. We also think that SBTi members will environmentally and financially perform better in the long term, due to continuously aligned targets with science, and growing pressure and recognition of the SBTi by stakeholders. Our study implies that the SBTi will most likely see a pattern of early adopters, the frontrunners; and late adopters, the followers or the firms that experience difficulties with emission identification. However, one should also be aware that there will be a group of outliers, identified as the corporates that will not voluntarily participate in this initiative, or corporate climate action in general. Yet, it requires global collaboration of the entire corporate landscape to close the emission gap. Therefore, our findings are valuable in the sense that they can aid different stakeholders to develop more effective strategies for encouraging businesses to develop a sustainability agenda. Thereby, understanding what motivates corporates to take climate action is important for policymakers, since the effectiveness of policies also depends in large part on how firms will respond to them. To reach the tipping point in which companies cannot deny joining the SBTi, we recommend the SBTi to focus on targeting new sectors, firms with conservative corporate cultures, and mature sustainability programs. As well as responding to this expected growth within their own organization and establishing a network of experts and corporates which aids in scope 3 identification. In turn, we advise corporates to join forces that support emission identification and disclosure in comprehensible language. Furthermore, our results encourage corporates to establish an organizational structure that enhances collaborative action and sustainable decision-making, for instance with a sustainability committee and dedicated leadership. Additionally, purchasing companies should use their power to trigger a cascade of science-based targets amongst the supply chain. Moreover, corporates should always lobby for science-based climate policies, even when forms of voluntary climate action are already present. It is thereby up to the government to engage with corporate communities that promote climate policy formation, formulate policies on compulsory emission identification, and join forces with the SBTi to promote the advantages of standardized science-based targets by understanding what truly drives corporates to take voluntary climate action. Following our work, there is abundant room for formulating more detailed policies, investigating additional external pressures that affect corporates to join, and zooming in on each individual sector to account for existing sector differences.

Climate change has increased the interest around energy intensity to many researchers. Understanding the drivers of energy intensity is essential to produce a fitting policy. While structural changes have been acknowledged as drivers of economy-wide energy intensity, it has not been recognised as an influential factor on industry-level energy intensity because there is simply not enough data to do so. To generate a more reliable understanding of the mechanism that drives industries’ energy intensity, I explore the role of international trade on inter-country differences in the energy intensity of industries. The approach in this thesis shows with multiple panel data regressions how changes in trade specialisation in products explain inter-country differences in energy intensity of industries. The results estimate that an industry’s energy intensity increases when it develops a comparative advantage in products whose production requires lots of energy, ceteris paribus, and decreases when it develops a comparative advantage in products whose production requires little energy. Since the effect of trade specialisation in one product goes on behalf of the effect of trade-specialisation in other products, there is a strong suspicion that there are changing compositions of industries. For policy changes, these results can provide insights into how a centralised approach in trade agreements and a decentralised approach in industry policies can tackle the industry’s energy-intensity problems. In future research, it might be possible to accurately predict the composition effects by explaining the changes in the energy intensity of products with trade specialisation in products.

Industrial decarbonisation has largely stagnated over the last years in Germany. A large share of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions stem from the combustion of natural gas for producing higher temperature process heat. High-Temperature Heat Pumps (HTHPs) are an emerging technology that can upgrade waste heat with electrical input to high temperatures needed for the processes and thus can contribute to the electrification of industries. Hence, HTHP can significantly reduce GHG emissions stemming from the production of process heat. While residential heat pumps are widely commercially available due to lower temperature requirements, no HTHPs were installed in German industries in 2018 due to multiple technical, market, and knowledge barriers. HTHPs are expected to reach temperatures up to 250°C soon, making the food and beverages industry a suitable sector due to process temperature requirements at the lower industrial spectrum (<250°C). The International Energy Agency (IEA) outlines that HTHPs are a core emerging technology to replace fossil-fuel boilers in industry over the next decades. Thus, there is a large market ahead for manufacturers. This study evaluates the techno-economic potential of HTHPs in the Germany food and beverages industry. Further, it evaluates the GHG emissions abatement potential in relation to total GHG emissions of the industrial sector. This study has a generalized and systemic scope, thus does neither consider specific case studies, nor performs process optimization. It follows a bottom-up approach to include process- and technology-specific information and scales it up to national level. This study uses two waste heat scenarios, first considering an average 45°C industrial waste heat availability as worst-case, and second considering direct exhaust temperatures as best-case scenario. The generic bottom-up approach results in limited, but more detailed, coverage which makes the results conservative estimates for the application potential of HTHPs in German industries. The most energy-intensive sub-sectors of the German food and beverages industry are sugar production, meat processing, dairy processing, bakery products production and beer production, which together accounted for approximately 9333 kt-CO2-equivalents in 2020. The processes dominating the thermal energy demand are mainly pasteurisation, cooking, baking, evaporation, and drying processes, which require higher temperatures for the evaporation of liquids and boiling off bacteria. The thermodynamic efficiency, the COPs, of applying HTHPs to the processes lay between 1,7 – 4,8 for the worst-case scenario and 2,4 – 22,7 for the best-case scenario. The technical potential for 2018 results in 12 TWh. Between 3 - 5,5 TWh of electricity are required to cover the technical potential. The GHG emissions abatement potential lays between 52 - 855 kt-CO2-eq. This could mean a reduction of up to 9% of total GHG emissions of the five sub-branches. Due to very high electricity costs and an absent carbon tax in industry in 2018, the most cost-effective scenario (50 MW HTHP in the best-case) is not cost-competitive with the optimized fossil-fuel benchmark. The levelized cost of heat (LCOH) for this scenario is 37 €/MWh, of which approximately 67% are stemming from electricity costs. With a carbon tax of min. 48 €/t-CO2-eq. the switch to an HTHP becomes cost-competitive (incl. maintenance and investment costs). With an expected increase in carbon taxation, less efficient scenarios become cost competitive. By reducing the electricity price by 50%, the best-case scenario with the large HTHP is cost-competitive without a carbon tax. Hence, there is a strong correlation between electricity price and cost-competitiveness of HTHPs. It is expected that the emission factor of the German electricity mix will decrease further in the future and strive towards zero in the long-term, which will lead to substantial increase of GHG emissions abatement potential. When the emission factor for electricity is reduced by 38%, the GHG emissions abatement potential lays at 16% of total GHG emissions of the five sub-branches. The timely investment into HTHPs drastically reduces the risk of sunken costs and makes industrial decarbonisation efforts in this decade attractive from an industrial perspective. Subsidies, carbon taxation, and the reduction of electricity prices by for example removing the German renewable energy levy (EEG) can contribute to making low-carbon technologies such as HTHPs more competitive to fossil-fuel infrastructure that run on fossil fuels with low prices in the industrial sector. Industrial decarbonisation is highly relevant in Germany due to the recent tightening of industrial decarbonisation targets and the systemic demonstration of HTHPs potentials crucial to achieving the latter.

Texel has signed a shared ambition manifesto together with the other Dutch Wadden Islands, which states that they desire to reach full self-succiciency in terms of water and (renewable) energy by 2020. It is safe to assume that neither of these ambitions will be reached in time on Texel. Because technical limitations are not necessarily the reason for this, the question why is studied through theories of governance of change. This thesis has two goals. The first goal is to create an analytical framework to analyze processes of governance of change in socio-technical systems. The second is to apply this framework on the socio-technical energy- and water systems on Texel in order to learn about how the governance of change has contributed to the current state of these systems, compared to Texel's ambitions. What was learned from Texel is that the successfulness of strategies in the governance of change depends on the nature and context of the system. For example: mobilizing people to found energy cooperation TexelEnergie was successful because the energy market in place allowed an opportunity for such an initiative to work. Secondly, the Texel Core Values could be successfully utilized to shift the direction of change from windmills and bio- fermentation to solar energy and energy savings, because the decentralized nature of the system allowed social actors to guide change on their own terms, based on the cultural values of Texel. In contrast, in the water system these strategies would not work because the drinking water market is closed and regulated by governmental actors, meaning that there is no opportunity present for societal actors to mobilize and start producing their own drinking water. In that regard, legitimacy for change is absent since they depend on the support of drinking water company PWN, which is merely concerned with providing a reliable drinking water infrastructure and is legally bound to provide this in the most cost-effective and safe way possible. Hence, they are not interested in changing the existing centralized drinking water system towards a system where drinking water is produced on the island, simply because it is desired by Texel. This thesis covered a dual case study where the governance of change in the socio-technical energy and water systems on Texel was analyzed. Generalization from single case studies is a controversial topic and requires extrapolation that can never be fully justified because findings are always embedded within a context. In this study, the findings from the previous section are embedded in a specific context that is unique to Texel. Because of this it would be premature to express any generalistic and legitimate conclusions about governance of change in socio-technical systems based on the findings of these case studies alone. Such claims warrant similar analysis of other socio-technical systems, preferably also water and energy systems but in different settings (settings here referring to different locations or communities). This is proposed as topics for future research.

This study emphasizes on how the future power demand in Suriname can be met with sustainable energy sources. The scope of the power demand is limited to the electricity supply for residential and industry as well as for the road transportation sector in case of electrification of vehicles. Moreover, through the unbundling of the energy sector, assessment of renewable energy potentials and the application of the backcasting framework by Quist, policy packages are developed. Finally, a transition pathway for the selected scenario is developed, together with the recommendations on how to achieve the desired vision.

Several studies have posed that international cooperative initiatives lead by businesses could aid in mitigating global warming in ways that are additional to national policies. However, evaluations on their progress are rare due to many informational issues. This research gap is worrisome since such initiatives can also have negative effects on global commitment due to effort fragmentation and greenwashing. This thesis evaluates progress in two initiatives that have featured prominently in the literature: the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and RE100. The group of companies evaluated was reduced to the Fortune Global 500, a ranking of the largest firms by revenue. Large datasets were created with the targets set by these companies, their emissions and energy use, among others. Progress was evaluated in four aspects: the ambition of targets, the robustness of their disclosure of sustainability metrics, the implementation of changes to their energy profiles, and finally the substantive progress seen in their collective carbon footprint. It was found that among the two initiatives, SBTi appears posed for larger emissions mitigation, while RE100 is better at promoting more effective renewable energy purchasing practices. However, direct emission reductions are mostly concentrated on a reduced number of firms in energy intensive sectors, with the remaining members focusing on reductions through indirect methods that might not be additional at the global level. Similarly, it was found that informational barriers remain high even in these firms, with a plethora of inconsistencies that complicate year-by-year comparisons.

There is growing consensus around the world for the need to transition to a more sustainable society. This is transition is currently being led by making the energy sector more sustainable by shifting to renewable energy sources from fossil fuel sources at a steady pace. However, there seems to be increasing recognition that the steady pace may not be fast enough. Therefore, there are many cities, countries, organizations that are coming out in support of a 100% renewable energy transition. There is sufficient attention given to this the endeavour of transitioning in developed nations and major developing nations. However, Small Island Developing States (SIDS) have historically lagged behind in proceeding with this transition even though they are arguably going to be the most severely affected by the inaction. Majority of SIDS energy comes from imported oil products. As we speak there are islands disappearing because of sea level rise. That said islands present an interesting geographical scope to analyse for an energy transition because of their unique challenges. These challenges stem from their isolated location and small size; which leads to high energy prices, lack of economy of scale and this is worsened by their potential vulnerability to environmental catastrophes. In recent years, however, there has been more attention given to SIDS and their issues. This is marked by Fiji being the President of COP23, and the COP23 paying special attention to SIDS. Following this recent surge in attention, many islands have set ambitious targets to pursue for the transition yet their execution has been bleak. It is astonishing that even though islands have the most renewable energy potential they have made limited progress, literature very widely states that the lack of economy of scale, technical knowledge and expertise, political will and lack of human capacity are leading causes and all of this leads to a larger risk perception leading to lack of investments. However the literature on islands transitioning is concentrated on either on a combination of technological, economical or societal issues and is geographically concentrated on the Pacific and Mediterranean islands.

The current energy infrastructure, energy policy, and the business environment are designed to support the conventional power system. Hence, it is crucial to create a conducive business environment to accelerate the deployment and power generation through solar PV and wind power. This research has adapted the theory of the business environment and developed a framework to represent and map the national business environment of renewable energy by incorporating the factors such as the national political will for the adoption of renewable energy (RE), renewable energy policy and regulatory environment, economic incentives for renewable energy, industrial growth, technological preparedness for high share integration of variable renewable energy, and interactions among these factors. The framework is applied on the power sector of the top-7 countries emitting countries responsible for 29% of the global emissions, which are China, the USA, India, Russia, Japan, Germany, and South Korea. The results suggest that the political will and technological preparedness have the most substantial influence on the growth of the renewable energy industry, and due to the presence of market failures, economic incentives and the market forces are not sufficient to drive the growth of renewable energy. The Regulatory Indicators for Sustainable Energy (RISE) by the World Bank are inefficient in capturing the economic incentives for renewable energy and in explaining the effectiveness of the adopted renewable energy policy. The overall status of the renewable energy business environment of the countries mentioned above are presented and discussed, followed by recommendations to improve the renewable energy business environment. This research contributes by developing a new adapted theory and a better understanding of the RE business environment, presents a novel framework, which is scalable, and may be implemented to an extended set of countries.