Exploring stakeholder collaboration in the context of local energy systems

Abstract

Due to the increase of renewable energy sources and electrification, the traditional electricity grid cannot provide for our transition to a more sustainable future. One of the main problems is net congestion, as the net has reached its capacity, with an even further predicted increase in the future. As the expansion of the current net is not fast enough to keep up with the increase in energy supply and demand, there is a need to manage our energy more efficiently. Compared to other alternatives, the use of local energy systems seems to be the most promising one. In reaction to this, the Dutch government is implementing a new measure: the Group Contract (Groeps-TO), making it possible for business parks to share their electricity, and therefore implement a local energy system. In anticipation of this, numerous pilot initiatives in the Netherlands have explored electricity sharing through various approaches. This facilitated the opportunity for conducting research on this innovative implementation. However, there remains a gap in the research on the understanding of stakeholders and their interdependent relations and collaborations, in the context of local energy systems. This understanding is important to eventually stimulate further implementation of local energy systems, and thus tackling net congestion. Therefore, the research question of this thesis is: What underlying factors influence stakeholder collaboration to improve further deployment of local energy systems on business parks?. This research composes of a literature review, four case studies including 18 semi-structured interviews with actors and a questionnaire distributed among the located companies on the business park. Additionally, a focus group session was conducted with experts in the field of local energy systems, to validate the findings. The results of these findings provide insights into the stakeholder collaboration and their underlying factors. The Strategic Niche Management theory (Schot & Geels, 2008) was used to unravel the underlying factors with, next to vision and learning activities, a focus on the social network, which has been identified as the primary barrier to the sustainable transformation of Dutch business parks. Additionally, by using the Multi Actor Network analysis (Gerding et al., 2021), insights into stakeholder collaboration and actor relationships have been discovered. Furthermore, barriers and enablers of stakeholder collaboration in the context of local energy systems were observed in the case studies. By analysing the factors: vision, learning activities and barriers and enablers, an adjusted and generalized actor network has been proposed for local energy systems on Dutch business park. This actor-network provides valuable insights into the actors of these projects, and their mutual relations. These insights contribute to the ultimate goal, to pave the way for the wider adoption of local energy systems within business parks in the Netherlands.