Midway seminar: Actors, policies and coalitions in the European energy transition

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Marie Byskov Lindberg is a Doctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Technology, Innovation, and Culture (TIK). This seminar marks her mid-way evaluation.

 

 

Project description

Marie's PhD research investigates the policy mix of the European Union for decarbonization of the electricity system. There is a current discussion in the sustainability transitions literature about how to study policy mixes for transitions. Marie's work will provide a contribution to this literature by assessing the current electricity policies of the European Union.

The thesis’ conceptual contribution is to suggest a new methodology for assessing policy mixes. The empirical contribution mainly consists of two parts: First, an assessment of current policies and second, a tracking of the ongoing negotiation process where the EU will adopt new and amended policies for the electricity sector, the so-called “Clean Energy Package”.

At the heart of the European energy policy discussion stands the question of how to facilitate a shift to renewable or zero-emission energy sources: Can the market and a strong emissions-trading scheme (ETS) provide sufficient incentives or do we still need additional instruments like special treatment of renewable energy like subsidies and priority dispatch? The empirical work traces the positions of key actors with respect to this question and identifies advocacy coalitions in the negotiation process. In the wake of this debate is also the issue of increasing decentralization of the electricity system. Moreover, the thesis investigates the impact of policies and actor’s preferences on the dichotomy decentralization versus continued centralization of the electricity system.

 

Thesis advisor

  • Allan Dahl Andersen (TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture)

Commentators

  • Jan Fagerberg (TIK Centre for Technology, Innovation and Culture, UiO)

  • Elin Lerum Boasson (Department of Political Science, UiO)

 

The seminar is open to everyone, and the manuscript is available upon request.

 

Published May 7, 2018 11:31 AM - Last modified July 29, 2022 11:22 AM