A Governance Approach to Regional Energy Transition: Meaning, Conceptualization and Practice

Abstract

Energy transition requires action from different levels of government. While the national and local level have received ample scholarly attention, thus far little attention has been paid to the regional level. This is remarkable because policy makers across Europe are wondering what governance of regional transition actually is and how to shape and implement it. In the present paper, this concern is addressed. The research questions are, “What does regional governance of energy transition entail? How can it be conceptualized? And what does it mean in practice?” The questions are answered by presenting the results of a multi-disciplinary literature study, presenting a conceptual framework on governance of regional energy transition, using insights from innovation and transition studies as well as from the regional and network governance literature, and applying this to the illustrative case of the West-Brabant region in The Netherlands. West-Brabant is a relatively large region and was home to a pilot that involved the development of a regional energy strategy. Data collection involved twenty expert interviews, text documents and participative observation in workshops. Results highlight the relevance of each of the key elements of the conceptual governance framework. However, some are particularly relevant like structural characteristics of the regional actor network, actor characteristics, and regional governance arrangements used. The results reveal commonalities with regional governance in other policy domains. This paper contributes to the literature on polycentric governance of energy transition and climate change mitigation, and concludes with the presentation of a research agenda.

Policy-relevant insights for regional renewable energy deployment

“…regional energy planning in terms of RE targets, siting and consenting powers), as shaped historically by EU and national legislation and as they may evolve after Brexit [15,49,50]; (ii) the actors involved (e.g. regional governments, regional actors and their networks) [35,51]; and (iii) how they exercise such governance, via the establishment of visions, the framing of economic development opportunities and entrepreneurial agency [52,53].…”

Economic Evaluation, Use of Renewable Energy, and Sustainable Urban Development Mamminasata Metropolitan, Indonesia

“…The results of research that support this study include the following: (1) A study conducted by Vandevyvere, H and Stremke, S [23] examined urban planning for the future of renewable energy requires collaboration of various disciplines both in research and practice. The results of the study indicated that environmental assessment must be carried out complemented by socio-cultural, economic, juridical, aesthetic, and socio-cultural aspects that characterize the planning or decision-making process.…”

The Lithium Wars: From Kokkola to the Congo for the 500 Mile Battery

“…This would augment their two other cathode production factories, together with another one in China. In 2019, LG Chem, like Tesla (also dusting off its corporate child labour and corruption rules), agreed to purchase "controversial" Congo cobalt from Glencore, something Tesla was also planning due to global shortages [24,[28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]. In response to these moves, Toyota Motor Corporation and Panasonic set up a joint venture from 2020 to produce EV batteries.…”

“…In between are some distant innovative small firms experimenting with new raw materials for batteries or highly specialist singleton engineering firms like Grohmann (now Tesla Grohmann Automation) or Maxwell. Discussions of this twin-carb model type can be found particularly in [7,8,10,28].…”