TY - CHAP A1 - Quitzow, Rainer A1 - Bersalli, Germán A1 - Lilliestam, Johan A1 - Prontera, Andrea ED - Rayner, Tim ED - Szulecki, Kacper ED - Jordan, Andrew J. ED - Oberthür, Sebastian T1 - Green recovery BT - catalyst for an enhanced EU role in climate and energy policy? T2 - Handbook on European Union Climate Change Policy and Politics N2 - This chapter reviews how the European Union has fared in enabling a green recovery in the aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, drawing comparisons to developments after the financial crisis. The chapter focuses on the European Commission and its evolving role in promoting decarbonisation efforts in its Member States, paying particular attention to its role in financing investments in low-carbon assets. It considers both the direct effects of green stimulus policies on decarbonisation in the EU and how these actions have shaped the capacities of the Commission as an actor in the field of climate and energy policy. The analysis reveals a significant expansion of the Commission’s role compared to the period following the financial crisis. EU-level measures have provided incentives for Member States to direct large volumes of financing towards investments in climate-friendly assets. Nevertheless, the ultimate impact will largely be shaped by implementation at the national level. KW - European Union KW - green recovery KW - climate finance KW - European Green Deal KW - just transition Y1 - 2023 SN - 978-1-78990-698-1 SN - 978-1-78990-697-4 U6 - https://doi.org/10.4337/9781789906981.00039 SP - 351 EP - 366 PB - Edward Elgar Publishing ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Bersalli, Germán A1 - Tröndle, Tim A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Most industrialised countries have peaked carbon dioxide emissions during economic crises through strengthened structural change JF - Communications earth & environment N2 - As the climate targets tighten and countries are impacted by several crises, understanding how and under which conditions carbon dioxide emissions peak and start declining is gaining importance. We assess the timing of emissions peaks in all major emitters (1965–2019) and the extent to which past economic crises have impacted structural drivers of emissions contributing to emission peaks. We show that in 26 of 28 countries that have peaked emissions, the peak occurred just before or during a recession through the combined effect of lower economic growth (1.5 median percentage points per year) and decreasing energy and/or carbon intensity (0.7) during and after the crisis. In peak-and-decline countries, crises have typically magnified pre-existing improvements in structural change. In non-peaking countries, economic growth was less affected, and structural change effects were weaker or increased emissions. Crises do not automatically trigger peaks but may strengthen ongoing decarbonisation trends through several mechanisms. KW - climate-change mitigation KW - economics KW - environmental economics KW - environmental studies Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-023-00687-8 SN - 2662-4435 VL - 4 IS - 1 SP - 44 EP - 44 PB - Springer Nature CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Thonig, Richard A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Concentrating solar technology policy should encourage high temperatures and modularity to enable spillovers JF - AIP conference proceedings N2 - Thermal energy from concentrating solar thermal technologies (CST) may contribute to decarbonizing applications from heating and cooling, desalination, and power generation to commodities such as aluminium, hydrogen, ammonia or sustainable aviation fuels (SAF). So far, successful commercial-scale CST projects are restricted to solar industrial process heat (SIPH) and concentrating solar power (CSP) generation and, at least for the latter, depend on support from public policies that have been stagnating for years. As they are technologically similar, spillovers between SIPH or CSP and other emerging CST could accelerate commercialization across use cases while maximizing the impact of scarce support. Here, we review the technical potential for cross-fertilization between different CST applications and the ability of the current policy regime to enable this potential. Using working temperature as the key variable, we identify different clusters of current and emerging CST technologies. Low-temperature CST (<400℃) applications for heating, cooling and desalination already profit from the significant progress made in line-focussing CSP over the last 15 years. A newly emerging cluster of high temperature CST (>600℃) for solar chemistry and high-grade process heat has significant leverage for spillovers with point-focussing solar tower third-generation CSP currently under development. For these spillovers to happen, however, CSP policy designs would need to prioritize innovation for high working temperature and encourage modular plant design, by adequately remunerating hybridized plants with heat and power in and outputs that include energy sources beyond CST solar fields. This would enable synergies across applications and scales by incentivizing compatibility of modular CST components in multiple sectors and use cases. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0149423 SN - 1551-7616 SN - 0094-243X IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 11 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Apergi, Maria A1 - Zimmermann, Eva A1 - Weko, Silvia A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Is renewable energy technology trade more or less conflictive than other trade? JF - Energy policy N2 - Renewable energy changes the geopolitics of energy: whereas access to fossil fuel resources were key in the past, control over technology and industry will be key in the future. Consequently, different scholars have predicted that a growing focus on renewables will increase or decrease conflict in the energy sector, with no consensus on which is most likely. Here, we investigate the degree of conflict in renewable energy technology (RET) trade by analyzing data on 7041 trade conflicts 1995–2020, guided by two sets of theory-driven hypotheses. We show that RET trade is associated with more, longer, and more intense trade conflicts than other trade conflicts for 1995–2016. This supports the neorealist, geo-economic view of countries being willing to risk conflict to increase their share of a market rather than avoiding conflicts to increase the overall market size. It also contradicts the view that renewables will reduce conflict: at least in the past and regarding trade, it has increased rather than decreased conflict. For 2017–2020, this trend is reversed and RET trade became significantly less conflictive than other trade. Our findings imply that improved conflict-resolution institutions for RET are needed. We also suggest establishing specific institutions to govern trade in immature technologies. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2023.113538 SN - 0301-4215 SN - 1873-6777 VL - 177 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Lilliestam, Johan A1 - Du, Fengli A1 - Gilmanova, Alina A1 - Mehos, Mark A1 - Wang, Zhifeng A1 - Thonig, Richard T1 - Scaling up CSP BT - how long will it take? T2 - AIP conference proceedings N2 - Concentrating solar power (CSP) is one of the few scalable technologies capable of delivering dispatchable renewable power. Therefore, many expect it to shoulder a significant share of system balancing in a renewable electricity future powered by cheap, intermittent PV and wind power: the IEA, for example, projects 73 GW CSP by 2030 and several hundred GW by 2050 in its Net-Zero by 2050 pathway. In this paper, we assess how fast CSP can be expected to scale up and how long time it would take to get new, high-efficiency CSP technologies to market, based on observed trends and historical patterns. We find that to meaningfully contribute to net-zero pathways the CSP sector needs to reach and exceed the maximum historical annual growth rate of 30%/year last seen between 2010-2014 and maintain it for at least two decades. Any CSP deployment in the 2020s will rely mostly on mature existing technologies, namely parabolic trough and molten-salt towers, but likely with adapted business models such as hybrid CSP-PV stations, combining the advantages of higher-cost dispatchable and low-cost intermittent power. New third-generation CSP designs are unlikely to play a role in markets during the 2020s, as they are still at or before the pilot stage and, judging from past pilot-to-market cycles for CSP, they will likely not be ready for market deployment before 2030. CSP can contribute to low-cost zero-emission energy systems by 2050, but to make that happen, at the scale foreseen in current energy models, ambitious technology-specific policy support is necessary, as soon as possible and in several countries. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0148709 SN - 1551-7616 SN - 0094-243X VL - 2815 IS - 1 PB - American Institute of Physics CY - Melville ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lilliestam, Johan A1 - Patt, Anthony A1 - Bersalli, Germán T1 - On the quality of emission reductions BT - observed effects of carbon pricing on investments, innovation, and operational shifts. A response to van den Bergh and Savin (2021) JF - Environmental and Resource Economics N2 - To meet the Paris Agreement targets, carbon emissions from the energy system must be eliminated by mid-century, implying vast investment and systemic change challenges ahead. In an article in WIREs Climate Change, we reviewed the empirical evidence for effects of carbon pricing systems on technological change towards full decarbonisation, finding weak or no effects. In response, van den Bergh and Savin (2021) criticised our review in an article in this journal, claiming that it is "unfair", incomplete and flawed in various ways. Here, we respond to this critique by elaborating on the conceptual roots of our argumentation based on the importance of short-term emission reductions and longer-term technological change, and by expanding the review. This verifies our original findings: existing carbon pricing schemes have sometimes reduced emissions, mainly through switching to lower-carbon fossil fuels and efficiency increases, and have triggered weak innovation increases. There is no evidence that carbon pricing systems have triggered zero-carbon investments, and scarce but consistent evidence that they have not. Our findings highlight the importance of adapting and improving climate policy assessment metrics beyond short-term emissions by also assessing the quality of emission reductions and the progress of underlying technological change. KW - Carbon pricing KW - Climate policy KW - Decarbonisation KW - Technological change KW - Energy transition Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s10640-022-00708-8 SN - 0924-6460 SN - 1573-1502 VL - 83 IS - 3 SP - 733 EP - 758 PB - Springer CY - Dordrecht ER - TY - JOUR A1 - McKenna, Russell A1 - Pfenninger, Stefan A1 - Heinrichs, Heidi A1 - Schmidt, Johannes A1 - Staffell, Iain A1 - Bauer, Christian A1 - Gruber, Katharina A1 - Hahmann, Andrea N. A1 - Jansen, Malte A1 - Klingler, Michael A1 - Landwehr, Natascha A1 - Larsén, Xiaoli Guo A1 - Lilliestam, Johan A1 - Pickering, Bryn A1 - Robinius, Martin A1 - Tröndle, Tim A1 - Turkovska, Olga A1 - Wehrle, Sebastian A1 - Weinand, Jann Michael A1 - Wohland, Jan T1 - High-resolution large-scale onshore wind energy assessments BT - a review of potential definitions, methodologies and future research needs JF - Renewable energy N2 - The rapid uptake of renewable energy technologies in recent decades has increased the demand of energy researchers, policymakers and energy planners for reliable data on the spatial distribution of their costs and potentials. For onshore wind energy this has resulted in an active research field devoted to analysing these resources for regions, countries or globally. A particular thread of this research attempts to go beyond purely technical or spatial restrictions and determine the realistic, feasible or actual potential for wind energy. Motivated by these developments, this paper reviews methods and assumptions for analysing geographical, technical, economic and, finally, feasible onshore wind potentials. We address each of these potentials in turn, including aspects related to land eligibility criteria, energy meteorology, and technical developments of wind turbine characteristics such as power density, specific rotor power and spacing aspects. Economic aspects of potential assessments are central to future deployment and are discussed on a turbine and system level covering levelized costs depending on locations, and the system integration costs which are often overlooked in such analyses. Non-technical approaches include scenicness assessments of the landscape, constraints due to regulation or public opposition, expert and stakeholder workshops, willingness to pay/accept elicitations and socioeconomic cost-benefit studies. For each of these different potential estimations, the state of the art is critically discussed, with an attempt to derive best practice recommendations and highlight avenues for future research. KW - onshore wind KW - resource assessments KW - social acceptance KW - planning constraints KW - research priorities Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2021.10.027 SN - 0960-1481 VL - 182 SP - 659 EP - 684 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Krupnik, Seweryn A1 - Wagner, Aleksandra A1 - Vincent, Olga A1 - Rudek, Tadeusz J. A1 - Wade, Robert A1 - Misik, Matúš A1 - Akerboom, Sanne A1 - Foulds, Chris A1 - Smith Stegen, Karen A1 - Adem, Çiğdem A1 - Batel, Susana A1 - Rabitz, Florian A1 - Certomà, Chiara A1 - Chodkowska-Miszczuk, Justyna A1 - Dokupilová, Dušana A1 - Leiren, Merethe D. A1 - Ignatieva, Frolova M. A1 - Gabaldón-Estevan, Daniel. A1 - Horta, Ana A1 - Karnøe, Peter A1 - Lilliestam, Johan A1 - Loorbach, Derk A. A1 - Mühlemeier, Susan A1 - Némoz, Sophie A1 - Nilsson, Måns A1 - Osička, Jan A1 - Papamikrouli, Louiza A1 - Pellizioni, Luigi A1 - Sareen, Siddharth A1 - Sarrica, Mauro A1 - Seyfang, Gill A1 - Sovacool, Benjamin K. A1 - Telesiene, Audrone A1 - Zapletalova, Veronika A1 - von Wirth, Timo T1 - Beyond technology BT - a research agenda for social sciences and humanities research on renewable energy in Europe JF - Energy research & social science N2 - This article enriches the existing literature on the importance and role of the social sciences and humanities (SSH) in renewable energy sources research by providing a novel approach to instigating the future research agenda in this field. Employing a series of in-depth interviews, deliberative focus group workshops and a systematic horizon scanning process, which utilised the expert knowledge of 85 researchers from the field with diverse disciplinary backgrounds and expertise, the paper develops a set of 100 priority questions for future research within SSH scholarship on renewable energy sources. These questions were aggregated into four main directions: (i) deep transformations and connections to the broader economic system (i.e. radical ways of (re)arranging socio-technical, political and economic relations), (ii) cultural and geographical diversity (i.e. contextual cultural, historical, political and socio-economic factors influencing citizen support for energy transitions), (iii) complexifying energy governance (i.e. understanding energy systems from a systems dynamics perspective) and (iv) shifting from instrumental acceptance to value-based objectives (i.e. public support for energy transitions as a normative notion linked to trust-building and citizen engagement). While this agenda is not intended to be—and cannot be—exhaustive or exclusive, we argue that it advances the understanding of SSH research on renewable energy sources and may have important value in the prioritisation of SSH themes needed to enrich dialogues between policymakers, funding institutions and researchers. SSH scholarship should not be treated as instrumental to other research on renewable energy but as intrinsic and of the same hierarchical importance. KW - horizon scanning KW - research priorities KW - funding directions KW - EU Horizon Europe KW - research-policy interface Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102536 SN - 22146296 VL - 89 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Kleanthis, Nikos A1 - Stavrakas, Vassilis A1 - Ceglarz, Andrzej A1 - Süsser, Diana A1 - Schibline, Amanda A1 - Lilliestam, Johan A1 - Flamos, Alexandros T1 - Eliciting knowledge from stakeholders to identify critical issues of the transition to climate neutrality in Greece, the Nordic Region, and the European Union JF - Energy research & social ccience N2 - There are considerable differences in the pace and underlying motivations of the energy transition in the different geographical contexts across Europe. The European Union's commitment to climate neutrality by 2050 requires a better understanding of the energy transition in different contexts and scales to improve cooperation of involved actors. In this article, we identify critical issues and challenges of the European energy transition as perceived by stakeholders and investigate how these perceptions vary across geographical contexts. To do so, we couple a policy document analysis with research based on stakeholder engagement activities in three different scales, national (Greece), regional (Nordic Region) and continental scale (European Union). Our findings show that stakeholder perspectives on the energy transition depend on contextual factors underlying the need for policies sensitive to the different transition issues and challenges in European regions. They also reveal cross-cutting issues and challenges among the three case studies, which could lead to further improvement of the cross-country collaboration to foster the European energy transition. KW - challenges KW - case studies KW - energy policy KW - energy transition KW - climate neutrality KW - stakeholder engagement Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102836 SN - 2214-6296 VL - 93 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Süsser, Diana A1 - Martin, Nick A1 - Stavrakas, Vassilis A1 - Gaschnig, Hannes A1 - Talens-Peiró, Laura A1 - Flamos, Alexandros A1 - Madrid-López, Cristina A1 - Lilliestam, Johan T1 - Why energy models should integrate social and environmental factors BT - assessing user needs, omission impacts, and real-word accuracy in the European Union JF - Energy research & social science N2 - Energy models are used to inform and support decisions within the transition to climate neutrality. In recent years, such models have been criticised for being overly techno-centred and ignoring environmental and social factors of the energy transition. Here, we explore and illustrate the impact of ignoring such factors by comparing model results to model user needs and real-world observations. We firstly identify concrete user needs for better representation of environmental and social factors in energy modelling via interviews, a survey and a workshop. Secondly, we explore and illustrate the effects of omitting non-techno-economic factors in modelling by contrasting policy-targeted scenarios with reality in four EU case study examples. We show that by neglecting environmental and social factors, models risk generating overly optimistic and potentially misleading results, for example by suggesting transition speeds far exceeding any speeds observed, or pathways facing hard-to-overcome resource constraints. As such, modelled energy transition pathways that ignore such factors may be neither desirable nor feasible from an environmental and social perspective, and scenarios may be irrelevant in practice. Finally, we discuss a sample of recent energy modelling innovations and call for continued and increased efforts for improved approaches that better represent environmental and social factors in energy modelling and increase the relevance of energy models for informing policymaking. KW - energy modelling KW - energy planning KW - energy policy KW - ecological crisis KW - social acceptance KW - environmental impacts Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2022.102775 SN - 2214-6296 VL - 92 SP - 102775 EP - 102775 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER -