Green hydrogen has a pivotal place in the energy transition, addressing carbon emissions in hard-to-abate sectors. As global hydrogen demand rises, decarbonizing green production becomes vital. This study explores the influence of design choices and local weather patterns on the Carbon Footprint (CF) and Levelised Cost of Hydrogen (LCOH) for green hydrogen production.

An optimisation model is developed, simulating the production chain (cradle-to-gate) and optimising it for low CF and LCOH based on location-specific wind and solar data. Three locations (Duqm, Groningen, Dakhla) and three design choices (electrolyser, PV type and wind-solar ratio) are assessed.

Results indicate that local weather patterns significantly affect system performance. Dakhla boasts low production costs due to consistent solar and wind energy. Groningen has a low CF but high LCOH due to ample offshore wind but inconsistent sun. Duqm has a low LCOH but high CF due to abundant sun but inconsistent wind.

Design choices, particularly the solar-wind energy ratio, strongly impact both LCOH and CF. PV technology selection also matters, with CI(G)S performing well overall. Alkaline electrolysis is preferred over PEM.

The research demonstrates that design choices can substantially influence the CF, resulting in serious CF reduction at prices comparable to blue hydrogen.

Future research should include storage, transportation, and off-taker aspects and expand impact categories, including social and critical raw material depletion impact categories.

Carbon capture and utilization (CCU) is an emerging technology for reducing the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere and to limit the negative effects on the global warming. Different from carbon capture and storage (CCS), in CCU the carbon captured from point sources or direct from air is processed to valuable carbon containing products. Several studies have been conducted on the technological and economic viability of CCU. However, no detailed process analyses with a system-level approach have been reported. Performance and challenges on pre-treatment and downstream processing of product streams have been ignored or generalized. This work aims to perform a detailed front-end techno-economic and environmental analysis on CCU pathways, focused on thermocatalysis (TC) and low- and high temperature electrolysis (LTE and HTE) of CO2. Identifying the most business critical pathways for valorization and utilization of CO2.

The scope of this study focuses on the identified single-step chemicals, that can directly be produced from CO2 without intermediates. KPI's selected for both conversion technologies are used to determine performance. A parametric analysis is carried out to evaluate the marginal costs of production per unit of weight for the selected chemicals. Based on costs, TRL and phase of product stream a selection of chemicals is made. Products identified as potential viable for industrial scale production and selected for further study are carbon monoxide (LTE, HTE and TC), formic acid (LTE and TC) and oxalic acid (LTE).

Conceptual process designs are made using reported system performance with all required units identified. A model is developed to simulate input- and product streams, scale size of units, calculate required utilities and costs of investment and operation. All processes are modulated according to generic battery limits, use cases and analysis methodology to provide an equal comparative study. It is found that state-of-the-art electrochemical processes are dominated by capital investment costs and are too immature for commercial application. For TC processes, production costs are primarily driven by H2 and CO2 costs. CO shows the most potential in this respect and is competitive with the market price. A sensitivity analysis is performed to gain understanding of the sensitivity of the parameters. Conversion pathways that could gain significant technical improvements are most sensitive to CAPEX varying and are less affected by variance in operating expenses. Main focus for investments on EC technologies should be current density. More mature technologies are most sensitive to varying the costs of feedstock and market parameters.

Opportunities for process improvements are evaluated by a performance analysis for current base-case versus the expected near-term and optimistic future scenarios. The parameters used for modulation vary according to the expected improvements in technical performance, economic performance and electricity price. Opportunities for EC processes lie within extensive R\&D on conversion technology. For TC process, and on the long term for EC, opportunities lie within further development of green H2 production and CO2 capture. EC CCU pathways demonstrate great potential for future performance with potential reduction up to 71\% for near-term future. To quantify the environmental impact of the pathways and their improvements compared to conventional processes, a gate-to-gate life cycle assessment is performed. Switching to a more renewable energy mix offers serious improvements to minimize global warming impact. The most emission reducing pathways are CO TC and OA LTE which utilize more CO2 than is emitted during the process, -0.16 and -0.26 kg CO2-eq per kg of product.

Organic waste is the largest domestic waste category in the City of Buenos Aires (CABA) and is currently landfilled together with other waste streams. Landfilling organic waste not only has a large impact on the environment, but also leads to the loss of the value embedded in organic waste, such as nutrients and energy. In this regard, anaerobic digestion emerges as a potential waste treatment alternative that supports energy generation and nutrient recycling, while avoiding landfilling emissions.
Although AD is a relative mature and widely applied technology for the treatment of a variety of feedstocks (e.g., sewage sludge and animal manure), urban AD systems using biowaste are still in a preliminary stage. Therefore, the present research aims to evaluate the economic performance and the carbon footprint of this technology in CABA in the context of two case studies, where biogas is used to produce bioelectricity (C-1) and bio-CNG (C-2).
The case studies were assessed using a plant design which consisted of a biogas facility treating 23 thousand t/y of substrate, a mixture of OFMSW and recycled liquid fraction. Once biogas is produced as a result of the digestion process, a CHP and a membrane unit are used to produce bioelectricity and bio-CNG, respectively. Moreover, digestate, the material remaining after anaerobic digestion, is pasteurized for its utilization as biofertilizer on land.
The results of the economic analysis suggest that, under defined conditions, a positive NPV, IRR, and payback period can be obtained for both case studies. Nevertheless, there are high chances that the economic performance becomes negative, especially when changes are simulated that directly impact the amount of revenue the project makes.
The results of the carbon footprint indicate that both case studies could lead to substantial carbon savings, given that the avoided GHG emissions are substantially higher than the emitted ones. Large savings are obtained from avoiding the landfilling of organic waste, and replacing conventional energy, fuel, and fertilizers. The results of the carbon footprint are less sensitive to simulations performed, given the margin of avoided emissions over the emitted ones.
The analysis concluded that while both case studies are very likely to present environmental benefits, the economic constraints might impose a drawback for its implementation. Therefore, the support of the government is crucial to promote the adoption of AD, considering all the benefits that are associated with this technology.

Recovering phosphorus from manure allows to cycle a valuable nutrient back to agriculture while offering farmers a way to comply with the increasingly restrictive legislation concerning livestock manure application on agricultural land. To this end, a novel biocrystallization process in an Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Bed (UASB) reactor has been developed to recover phosphorus by retaining it in the sludge bed of the reactor, while producing biogas as a valuable by-product. Previous research has proven that this process is effective at recovering phosphorus at a lab level, but the economic feasibility and environmental performance of the process are still unknown. The present study analyses how this technology would perform from an environmental and economic perspective, to identify bottlenecks that could be addressed from the early stages of development.

The process was assessed using a conceptual design which consisted of an industrial facility treating the excreted manure of 11 farms in the region of Friesland, the Netherlands. The manure which was mechanically separated on-farm was later digested in the UASB reactor. The P-rich sludge obtained was dried to obtain a 2% P wt CaP fertilizer, while the effluent was stripped to later recover the ammonia as diammonium sulfate with a 7% wt N content.
The environmental assessment suggests that the P biocrystallization process could retain up to 41% of the initial P, while reducing the Global Warming Potential (GWP) associated with a conventional manure treatment by 36%. On the other hand, the techno-economic assessment, suggests that the P biocrystallization process could lead to a treatment cost of 26 € per ton of manure, which is nearly twice the value expected for a conventional manure treatment under the studied conditions. The elevated costs can be mainly linked to the high capital costs caused by the elevated energy requirement triggered by the drying unit needed to reduce the water content of the CaP fertilizer and by the high temperatures needed for the thermophilic digestion.

The analysis concluded that the P biocrystallization process is likely to present relevant environmental benefits when compared to conventional manure management systems, however, the economic constraints might impose a drawback for its implementation. Further research is suggested at a lab level to find methods to reduce the water content in the sludge and to study the effects of reducing the temperature of the anaerobic digestion (e.g., working at mesophilic conditions).

The capture of carbon dioxide before or after it is emitted has been regarded as a crucial mitigation pathway to prevent the rapidly increasing accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. The valorisation of the captured CO2 into value added products such as methanol provides an additional economic incentive to continue developing these technologies. The company Zero Emission Fuels B.V. (ZEF) is currently developing a mass-producible miniature methanol plant that houses a Direct Air Capture and CO2-compression unit, an Alkaline Electrolysis Cell, a Methanol Reactor, and a Distillation unit. Potential benefits of this approach are in the economies of scale of production, and autonomous operation in areas of high solar irradiation due to direct integration with PV systems.
To validate the microplant-concept from an environmental perspective, a research project was executed with the goal to establish the environmental profile of the microplant, to identify hotspots for impact mitigation, and to assess the position of the microplant’s environmental profile in relation to results of comparable technologies reported in literature. To do so, multiple technological development pathways were considered that project the current microplant’s performance into a range of future states.

The impact assessment of the future PV-powered air-to-methanol plant, suggests that it is likely that methanol produced using this approach will exhibit a low (negative cradle-to-gate) climate change impact along its production chain, especially compared to conventional methanol produced via the steam reforming of natural gas. Environmental trade-offs are incurred by the additional material demand compared to conventional methanol, instilled both by the electricity generation from PV panels and the added material demand of the thousands of micro-plants that need to be produced for sufficient methanol production volume.
Using polyamine sorbents for the process of capturing CO2 from the atmosphere inevitably leads to sorbent degradation which in turn can cause emissions of various substances. Using rough estimations via a worst/best case approach, it was analysed that emissions from the capture unit are relevant in three impact categories.
Overall, the additional material demand and sorbent-related emissions introduce significant trade-offs in between 5-8 impact categories, depending on the followed technological scenarios. Additional technological improvement may reduce the trade-off effect, leading to a reduction of trade-off categories to a number of four.

The analysis concluded that it is likely that there are benefits to using the microplant-approach to methanol production, though additional research is critical to iron out the large uncertainties that are paired with future-oriented life cycle assessment.

In the present study, a Model Predictive Control (MPC) - based, Energy Management Strategy (EMS) is proposed, aiming at the minimisation of the fuel consumption of vessels with hybrid propulsion and power supply. This approach is capable of utilising online information regarding realistic future predictions of the propulsive power demand, addressing the current gap in the literature regarding the implementation of MPC EMSs onboard ships, and pragmatic future mission information utilisation. To the author's best knowledge, MPC for fuel consumption minimisation has not yet been implemented at this timescale in maritime propulsion plants with hybrid power supply. Furthermore, online mission information from the Integrated Bridge Systems (IBSs) and the governor's human input cannot be utilised by EMSs onboard ships, due to the lack of a mathematical pathway to enable such an information feedback flow. Increasingly powerful processing units in ship controllers and a wider application of batteries in marine powertrains motivated such a computationally heavy and, simultaneously, highly fuel-efficient control approach. The proposed controller framework has been tested and verified in a case study using a Mean Value First Principle (MVFP) propulsion plant model of a hybrid naval vessel with batteries in Simulink®, provided by DAMEN® SNS. By using provided mission data, realistic mission profiles were generated, in which the proposed controller is validated against perfectly and piecewise, non-perfectly informed Dynamic Programming (DP) solutions in an information barrier scheme, yielding close to optimal performance, and a fuel consumption reduction of up to 3.5% when compared to any non-long-term feedback enabled controller.

The Netherlands aims to accelerate the energy transition. Accordingly, ambitious targets have been set for the industrial sector. This will require additional investments in the Dutch industry which is expected to reduce the CO2 emissions at limited costs in comparison with other sectors. However, the ambition to reduce the emissions can create a risk of loss of activity and jobs if the industrial businesses prospects are not ensured. Power-to-heat technology provides an opportunity to the industry to reduce the emissions for heating processes. This technology can be implemented in hybrid configurations to ensure the electrification of heat. Hybrid configurations are characterised by their ability to switch between natural gas and electricity which could cost-effectively reduce the emissions consuming electricity at low prices. In this research, a techno-economic evaluation of hybrid boiler systems is performed to analyse the potential of this technology to cost-effectively reduce the CO2 emissions for steam generation in a production process, in 2030. To this end, the operation of hybrid boiler systems was simulated and assessed. The performance of hybrid configurations was compared to alternative options. Finally, the hybrid systems were analysed under different scenarios for 2030. The results for the case study presented, showed that hybrid configurations saved operation costs and reduced the direct CO2 emissions by almost 20%. Therefore, the hybrid boiler could cost-effectively reduce the emissions. However the potential benefits of hybrid boilers are subjected to variation of electricity, natural gas and CO2 prices.

Humans have made a significant impact on the world. The built environment, agriculture, transportation, consumption, they all have their share in this impact. This research aims to find viable alternatives for carbon capture and utilization for small biomass plants that go beyond supplying CO2 to greenhouses. The research shows that carbon capture and utilization can potentially be beneficial, both from the perspective of society and the business perspective. The high level of uncertainty, following from assumptions and estimations necessary during the research, limits the power of this claim.

This research provides insight into the implementation of CCS in industrial production from a consumer perspective (i.e., the cost impact on the final product). The impact of implementing CCS in two different industries (e.g., cement and steel) to produce a final product is analyzed. Also, this research provides insight into CCS implementation in industries with high consumption products. It can be concluded that implementing CCS in industrial processes offers a solution to decarbonize industrial processes with a small impact on the final product cost.

Zero Emission Fuel (ZEF) has the goal to create affordable high-grade methanol, produced from absorbed carbon dioxide and water from the air. The methanol is produced in a solar methanol (MeOH) farm, consisting of 13225 micro-plants which are powered by PhotoVoltaicsolar panels (PV panels). The solar capacity of the solar MeOH farm is 12 MW and produces 7.8 tons of grade AA methanol per day (grade AA methanol has a purity of 99.8%). One of the main goals of ZEF is to produce methanol with a smaller environmental impact compared to the currently commonly used production methods. A part of the research focuses on an advice for the type of PV panels to use. The main goal of the research is to determine the environmental impact of methanol produced by the solar MeOH farm. The results lead to an advice for ZEF concerning reducing their environmental impact, also the research advises on further research.
To determine the environmental impact a life cycle assessment (LCA) is performed according to ISO 14040 and ISO 14044 standards, using the ReCiPe 2016 method. The midpoint impact categories researched are the global warming potential (GWP), the mineral resource scarcity, and the fossil resource scarcity. The functional unit of the LCA is one ton methanol. A set of assumptions is made concerning the solar MeOH farm, which are tested in the sensitivity analyses. A second LCA is performed, which compares different PV technologies. This LCA focuses on the endpoint impact categories, and the goal of this LCA is to show which PV technologies have the least environmental impact. The PV technology with the smallest environmental impact, polycrystalline silicon PV panels, is used in the LCA concerning the solar MeOH farm. One ton of methanol produced by the solar MeOH farm has a GWP of -835 ± 50 (6.5%) kg CO₂ equivalent, proving that the methanol produced by ZEF absorbs CO2. When the end-use of methanol is included, approximately 40% of the methanol produced by ZEF should be used for the production of plastic and chemicals to produce zero-emission methanol. After 7.9 ± 0.8 years of production, the solar MeOH farm has reached the CO₂ break-even point. The mineral resource scarcity of one ton methanol produced by the solar MeOH farm is 10.7 ± 0.7 (6.3%) kg Cu equivalent, the fossil resource scarcity is 127 ± 13 (10%) kg oil equivalent, and the energy payback time (EPT) is 6.9 ± 0.7 years of methanol production. The most crucial factor that influences the environmental impact is the amount of equivalent sun hour (ESH), therefore, the solar MeOH farm should operate on a location with a high amount of ESH to decrease the environmental impact. A 1% decrease of micro-plant efficiency increases the environmental impact with more than 1%. The recommendation is to focus on lifetime and efficiency when designing new subsystems, since lifetime is a more important factor than the materials used.

Reducing carbon emissions in the power generation sector can be done by generating energy from renewable sources such as wind and sun. However these sources alone cannot provide a reliable electricity system and therefore an energy storage system is needed. Power-to-gas is a concept in which surplus renewable electricity is used for the production a gas fuel. The gas can be stored and is used for electricity production when there is a deficit in renewable electricity. When CO2 exhaust gases form reactants for new production of gas, the system has no net CO2 emissions. The gas functions as an energy carrier for electrical energy. Methane could be an interesting gas for large scale energy storage as there is much knowledge about methane transport, storage and combustion and the gas is easier to store than hydrogen. Power-to-gas-to-power conversions come with great electricity losses. Therefore it is interesting to investigate what waste heat streams can be extracted from the process to use for external purposes. The aim of this thesis is to map the input and output energy streams of a power-to-methane-to-power system operating in 2030 to find the efficiency of the system and to see how efficiency could be maximized by using waste heat streams for external purposes. Also, a power-to-methane-to-power system requires a lot of gas storage capacity. Therefore it is useful to estimate the capacity of the gas storage facility to find if the system is technically feasible and to see what gas storage does with the efficiency of the system. Last, since the aim is to reduce carbon emissions the (small) CO2 emissions of the system are determined and analyzed. The system is scaled up to a scenario in which it provides a fully renewable electricity grid in the year 2050, to explore the feasibility in terms of carbon emissions and required gas storage capacity. The system is also compared to a power-to-hydrogen-to-power system to find the most feasible solution. The round trip energy efficiency of the system in 2030 is 88.0%, which is the sum of an electrical efficiency of 30.0% and a thermal efficiency of 57.1% The total energy efficiency can only be achieved when streams modeled as usable heat output streams can actually be used. This depends highly on the location of the system. The carbons emissions of a system with a 44MW output in 2030 are 56.3kt and the required gas storage capacity is 5.09 x 10^5 m3 of underground salt caverns. When scaling up the system to provide a fully renewable electricity grid, the total gas storage capacity is 9.34 x 10^7 m3, which is 5.5% of the total potential salt cavern volume in the Netherlands. The carbon emissions are 2.78 kt/y, which is 0.0056% of the current annual carbon emissions caused by the Dutch power generation sector. Compared to a hydrogen system the methane system performs worse in term of electrical efficiency, gas storage capacity and carbon emissions.

This thesis examines the production of an alternative liquid hydrocarbon fuel, namely CO2-methanol, produced utilising DAC, CO2 electrolysis, H2O electrolysis and thermo-catalytic synthesis. The reason for such research lies in a persistent growth in global energy demand, a significant share of which comes from liquid fuels, in the present context of global climate change.
We answer the main research question ‘What is the comparative environmental performance of DAC methanol, natural gas methanol and biomethanol?’ by meeting three research objectives. The first objective provides a two-level analysis of the mass and energy flows within the system and opens the black-box process of the DAC. The second objective leads to undertaking a life cycle assessment of CO2-methanol. Last, the third objective evaluates the suitability of LCA for the environmental assessment of realistic industrial processes.
The results of objective one show that mass and energy balances on the DAC process contain inaccuracies and help to identify unknowns in the remaining parts of the CO2-methanol production. The second objective illustrates that the CO2-methanol performs better than fossil methanol and biomethanol in terms of climate change impact and land use. Additionally, CO2-methanol causes a lower extent of environmental impact on human toxicity (non-carcinogenics) and resource depletion (water) in comparison with biomethanol, however, scores worse on these impact categories when compared with fossil methanol. The environmental performance of CO2-methanol inferior compared to both biomethanol and fossil methanol in terms of freshwater ecotoxicity, human toxicity (carcinogenics) and resource depletion (mineral, fossils, and renewables). Finally, the third objective points to imperfect LCA software available, not sufficient to model realistic industrial processes.

This thesis researches the influence of various communication channels, considering the psychological aspect of consumers, to the adoption process of residential PV system, using agent-based modeling case study in the Netherlands. Agent-based model is used to explore how PV adoption dynamic behavior emerges as the result of information transfer between individuals on a new technology. Diffusion of innovation theory is used as the basic framework on how the usage of new technology can spread and theory of planned behavior is utilized to get better understanding on consumer's psychological decision making process. Further discussion with a representative of power utility and interviews with 2 PV installers are done to obtain more knowledge on the system. The study shows that mass media has important role in spreading information to speed-up the adoption, more importantly in providing initial knowledge to households that have not had interest on PV yet. The role of information is further shown as there is indication that households' interest tend to increase with more knowledge available on the internet, and at the same time, leads to the increase of adoption rate. A crucial role of communication channel is to draw PV installer together with potential adopter. Finally, the adoption rate is strongly slowed down by household's basic reluctance on new technology and lower income level.

Uncertainty has an obstructing role in the decision-making of electrification investments for industrial actors. Future research by analysts is required to explore the potential of electrified industrial systems in their uncertain environments. In order to enable research to uncertainty in electrified industrial systems, the identification and exploration of uncertain factors is required. In this research, a method is proposed to identify and explore uncertain factors in electrified industrial systems. The development of the method is based on literature analyses. The findings in the current work about the conceptualisation, identification and exploration of uncertainty are synthesised with the specific characteristics of industrial environments. This led to the development of the Industrial uncertainty scan. The method was applied to a case-study to discuss its value.

In this thesis the goal is to determine the mitigation potential, below 100$ per ton of CO₂e, of nine climate mitigation measures in 2030 for the G20 and world regions across six sectors. The mitigation potentials for these measures was determined using a bottom-up approach utilizing recent literature, and where needed by up-scaling found results along assumed variables. The determined mitigation potentials are compared with the emissions gaps between a current policy scenario and scenarios limiting temperature rise below 1.5 and 2 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels. These emission gaps are estimated to be 18-22 GtCO₂e, and 24-27 GtCO₂e, respectively. Further, the found mitigation potentials are compared with the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) to the Paris climate accord of the G20 member states. It was found that the global mitigation potential for the nine treated measures in 2030 is 19-27 GtCO₂e. Subsequently, it is concluded that the emission gaps can both be closed if the mitigation potentials for the nine measures are realized, and that the NDCsof the G20 countries can be achieved in 2030 by a large margin. Finally, it is concluded that the G20 has a mitigation potential of 14.4-20 GtCO₂e in 2030 and thus has a significant share in the envisioned mitigation potential.

Renewable energy is continuously increasing its penetration in the energy supply network around the world. Due to the intermittent nature of renewable energy sources like solar and wind, storage of excess energy during its availability is vital. Energy storage, especially on the large scale, has recently received a lot of attention from the scientific world and ammonia has been identified as a
promising energy storage medium suitable for this application. Factors like high energy density, potential to have minimal carbon footprint and ready existence of suitable infrastructure for handling and transport especially make it an attractive choice. Moreover, ammonia is a bulk feedstock in the chemical and fertiliser industry making it a valuable commodity.
A generic model has been developed in MATLAB to assess the economic feasibility of producing ammonia from varying availability of electric power. The model estimates the optimum plant capacity at which levelised production cost is minimum thereby resulting in minimum energy storage cost. Steel industries like Tata Steel produce electric power to satisfy the plant’s operational
demand using by-product gases (termed as work arising gases) evolved during the steel making process. An intermittent availability of surplus electric power has been reported at Tata Steel, IJmuiden.
The economic feasibility of utilising ammonia to store the surplus available electric power using the developed MATLAB model has been assessed in this study. It has been found that the variable cost due to electric power consumption, the fixed cost of the system and capital cost of the electrolyser
significantly influence the production cost of ammonia. The minimum levelised production cost estimated in this study is €997/ton which is almost three times the current market price of ammonia. The system shows potential to produce ammonia at a competitive price when sufficient electric power is continuously available at an electricity price of €10/MWh or lower. Utilising part of the hydrogen produced from the work arising gases in the ammonia production process helps to lower the levelised production cost to around €913/ton. Availability of sufficient hydrogen simplifies the system and it may be possible to produce ammonia at a competitive price when hydrogen price is lower than €1.26/kg.
The power to ammonia process shows an efficiency of around 50%. Using gas turbines to produce electricity from ammonia are expected to result in roundtrip efficiencies of around 15%-25%. Research and pilot plants have shown good potential of using ammonia as a fuel in combustion engines and commercial applications are expected to be realised in the near future.

The energy system is a complex socio-technical system, characterised by a multitude of stakeholders, different goals, long-term investments, and large scale sub systems with long lifetimes. The government of the Netherlands aims to support the transition of the energy system of the Netherlands towards a sustainable system by implementing policy measures. Recently, companies have voiced their concerns on the fluctuating effects of policy measures in the Netherlands and have asked for a more long term vision of policy measures. This long term vision can be (partly) provided by analysing the interference in the energy system. Another component of a policy strategy is that to develop and implement a long term policy strategy, multiple governmental organisation have to collaborate. The policy measures are designed by different ministries within the Netherlands. In order to implement the coherent policy strategy, collaboration between these ministries is essential.

This research proposes a methodology to identify five types of interference and to analyse the effects of the identified interference on the Dutch energy system. This categorization of interference allows for a discussion on the unavoidable nature of interference. Moreover, it shows which types of interference can prove to be beneficial at certain times.

A conceptual theoretical framework for factors that influence interorganizational collaboration between public parties has been constructed based on literature, and is tested and validated within the case study. The research into interorganizational collaboration also includes a focus on the relations between the identified factors. The relations can provide insight into the more complex system view of the factors that influence interorganizational collaboration between public parties.

Both researches are based on a view of the world in systems, and for both is searched for links between sub-systems. Finding the link between the technical energy system and the collaborations required in policy making was based on this system perspective. These two topics are invariably linked together. The integrations in the energy system increases the need for collaboration, whereas collaboration can increase (the effectiveness of) the integrations in the energy system.