Historical developments in Dutch gas systems: Unravelling safety concerns in gas provision

This paper identifies safety concerns that arise from ongoing technical and institutional changes in the Dutch gas sector. The Netherlands has a well-developed gas infrastructure that primarily transports natural gas, although its constituting features are undergoing major changes. We identify three historical developments, and show how (1) ongoing effects of liberalization; (2) earthquakes in the Groningen-area; and (3) commitment to climate goals affect safety. Between trends of ongoing decentralization and a growing variety of gas producers, the most urgent concerns relate to the operation of low- and medium pressure distribution grids. Natural gas is losing its prominent role, leaving system operators faced with trade-offs induced by a declining share of customers. At the same time, responsibilities for new gas technologies are allocated over a growing number of actors. In illustrating how safety practices have evolved in line with incremental technological and institutional developments over the last half century, this article elaborates how sudden changes in constitutional features of infrastructural systems might jeopardize system safety.Economics of Technology and Innovatio

Can industries be parties in collective action? Community energy in an Iranian industrial zone

The industrial sector plays a huge role in creating economic growth. While energy is vital for industries to thrive, various factors are undermining the availability of energy including phasing out of fossil fuels, CO2 emission caps and, the large gap between the fast developments of industrial clusters and the energy supply, especially in developing countries. Recently, enabled by renewable energy technologies, a transition process is taking place towards decentralized settings for energy provision where households in neighbourhoods initiate renewable electricity cooperatives. The question addressed in this research is if or to what extent the model of collective action deployed by citizen cooperatives is applicable to collaborations between industries in an industrial cluster. We identified the conditions for the establishment of Industrial Community Energy Systems (InCES) from a collective action perspective by using Ostrom's Institutional Analysis and Development Framework. The case study selected is the industrial city of Arak, one of the largest and most diversified industrial clusters in Iran. Besides desk research, data was also collected by conducting semi-structured interviews and by holding stakeholder workshops. The results of this study highlight the importance of community spirit and trust for the establishment of InCES, unlike citizen cooperatives where finance and environmental attitude are essential. A transparent legal framework to resolve conflicts that might emerge in industrial partnerships is another crucial element given the many differences among industries such as differences in energy demand and in usage patterns.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.Energy & IndustryTransport and LogisticsEconomics of Technology and Innovatio

Upholding safety in future energy systems: The need for systemic risk assessment

This paper argues that energy systems are becoming increasingly complex, and illustrates how new types of hazards emerge from an ongoing transition towards renewable energy sources. It shows that the energy sector relies heavily on risk assessment methods that are analytic, and that systemic methods provide important additional insights.Acase study of the Dutch gas sector illustrates this by comparing the hazard and operability study (HAZOP, analytic) with the system-theoretic process analysis (STPA, systemic). The contribution is twofold. This paper illustrates how system hazards will remain underestimated by sustained use of only analytic methods, and it highlights the need to study the organization of safety in energy transitions. We conclude that appropriate risk assessment for future energy systems involves both analytic and systemic risk assessments.Economics of Technology and InnovationSafety and Security Scienc

Moral values as factors for social acceptance of smart grid technologies

Smart grid technologies are considered an important enabler in the transition to more sustainable energy systems because they support the integration of rising shares of volatile renewable energy sources into electricity networks. To implement them in a large scale, broad acceptance in societies is crucial. However, a growing body of research has revealed societal concerns with these technologies. To achieve sustainable energy systems, such concerns should be taken into account in the development of smart grid technologies. In this paper, we show that many concerns are related to moral values such as privacy, justice, or trust. We explore the effect of moral values on the acceptance of smart grid technologies. The results of our systematic literature review indicate that moral values can be both driving forces and barriers for smart grid acceptance. We propose that future research striving to understand the role of moral values as factors for social acceptance can benefit from an interdisciplinary approach bridging literature in ethics of technology with technology acceptance models.Economics of Technology and InnovationEthics & Philosophy of Technolog

Optimization modeling of regional energy systems considering coordination mechanisms

Dutch regional municipalities increasingly take an active role in the transition to more sustainable and autonomous energy supply systems, using local energy sources like wind, solar and biomass. The ambition, on the one hand, concerns how an optimal local energy supply system can be designed such that local energy targets can be realized with minimum dependence on the national energy grids. On the other hand, it is of importance to consider the coordination mechanisms between actors such as municipalities, local communities and grid operators, since they will influence the technical configuration of the system. In the literature about renewables-based regional energy systems, the technical optimizations are done mostly from a central planner point of view. Therefore, there lacks a study on the optimization models for regional renewable energy planning that has a comprehensive view on coordination mechanisms and their influence on the system performance. The objective of this work is to enhance the formulation of for self-sufficient regional energy systems by taking coordination mechanisms into account, in order to understand their influences on the system performance. In this paper, a toy model for making optimal long-term investment decisions in electricity generation and transmission will be presented. Two coordination mechanisms, namely one with a central planner, and the other one with a regional market, are considered. In addition, the different modeling approaches for rural and urban energy systems will be discussed. Initial results show that the coordination with a central planner has the least system cost. In the market-based coordination, it is recognized that the degree of shared information and of market participation influences the problem formulation. This results in the cost differences for different coordination mechanisms and for different actors, and thus gives policy implications in the choice of coordination mechanisms and in cost allocation.Energy & IndustryEconomics of Technology and InnovationEnergy Technolog

Energy Justice and Smart Grid Systems: Evidence from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

Smart grid systems are considered as key enablers in the transition to more sustainable energy systems. However, debates reflect concerns that they affect social and moral values such as privacy and justice. The energy justice framework has been proposed as a lens to evaluate social and moral aspects of changes in energy systems. This paper seeks to investigate this proposition for smart grid systems by exploring the public debates in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Findings show that smart grids have the potential to effectively address justice issues, for example by facilitating small-scale electricity generation and transparent and reliable billing. It is a matter of debate, however, whether current smart grid designs contribute to cost and energy savings, advance a more equitable and democratic energy system, or reinforce distributive and procedural injustices. The increased use of information and communication technology raises value conflicts on privacy and cyber security, which are related to energy justice. This research contributes by conceptualizing energy justice in the context of smart grids for the first time. The energy justice framework is broadened by including values and value conflicts that pertain directly to the increased use of information and communication technology. For policy makers and designers of smart grids, the paper provides guidance for considering interconnected social and moral values in the design of policies and smart grid technologies.Economics of Technology and InnovationEthics & Philosophy of Technolog

Designing for justice in electricity systems: A comparison of smart grid experiments in the Netherlands

In future urban energy systems, smart grid systems will be crucial for the integration of renewable energy. However, their deployment has moral implications, for example regarding data privacy, user autonomy, or distribution of responsibilities. ‘Energy justice’ is one of the most comprehensive frameworks to address these implications, but remains limited regarding smart grids, and regarding concrete guidelines for designers and policymakers. In this paper, we fill this gap by answering the following research question: How do design choices in smart grid projects impact energy justice? Thereby, four smart grid pilot projects are evaluated in a comparative qualitative case study research design. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and a content analysis. Our findings contribute to the energy justice literature with insights regarding the design for distributive, recognition, and procedural justice. They underscore the importance of fairness in data governance, participatory design, user control and autonomy, technology inclusiveness, and the design for expansion and replication. Future research should explore the feasibility to govern smart grids as commons and the relationship between trust and perceptions of justice. We conclude with policy recommendations for funding future smart grid experiments and for facilitating the implementation of storage through electricity sector regulation.Economics of Technology and InnovationEthics & Philosophy of Technolog

Energy Justice and Smart Grid Systems: Evidence from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom

Smart grid systems are considered as key enablers in the transition to more sustainable energy systems. However, debates reflect concerns that they affect social and moral values such as privacy and justice. The energy justice framework has been proposed as a lens to evaluate social and moral aspects of changes in energy systems. This paper seeks to investigate this proposition for smart grid systems by exploring the public debates in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Findings show that smart grids have the potential to effectively address justice issues, for example by facilitating small-scale electricity generation and transparent and reliable billing. It is a matter of debate, however, whether current smart grid designs contribute to cost and energy savings, advance a more equitable and democratic energy system, or reinforce distributive and procedural injustices. The increased use of information and communication technology raises value conflicts on privacy and cyber security, which are related to energy justice. This research contributes by conceptualizing energy justice in the context of smart grids for the first time. The energy justice framework is broadened by including values and value conflicts that pertain directly to the increased use of information and communication technology. For policy makers and designers of smart grids, the paper provides guidance for considering interconnected social and moral values in the design of policies and smart grid technologies.Economics of Technology and InnovationEthics & Philosophy of Technolog

Understanding the role of values in institutional change: The case of the energy transition

The current transition towards low-carbon energy systems does not only involve changes in technologies but is also shaped by changes in the rules and regulations (i.e., the institutions) that govern energy systems. Institutional change can be influenced by changes in core values - normative principles such as affordability, security of supply, and sustainability. Analyzing this influence, however, has been hindered by the absence of a structured framework that highlights the role of values in institutional change processes. This paper presents an interdisciplinary framework explicating how values influence institutional change in the case of the energy transition. We build on a dynamic framework for institutional change that combines the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework with the concept of social learning. This basic analytical framework is expanded by conceptualizations of values in moral philosophy, institutional economics, and social psychology. Our framework offers researchers and policy makers an analytical tool to identify how values are embedded in infrastructure and existing regulation and how values shape communities and behavior. It explains how value controversies can trigger social learning processes that eventually can result in structural change. Thus, this framework allows analyzing institutional change over time as well as comparing change patterns across spatial and temporal contexts.Economics of Technology and Innovatio

Energy security in community energy systems: An agent-based modelling approach

In community energy systems, the energy demand of a group of households is met by collectively generated electricity and heat from renewable energy sources. What makes these systems unique is their collective and collaborative form of organization and their distributed energy generation. While these features are crucial to the resilience of these systems and are beneficial for the sustainable energy transition in general, they may at the same time undermine the security of energy within these systems. This paper takes a comprehensive view of the energy security of community energy systems by considering dimensions such as energy price, environment and availability, which are all impacted by decentralized and collective means of energy generation and distribution. The study analyses community energy systems' technical and institutional characteristics that influence their energy security. An agent-based modelling approach is used for the first time to study energy security, focusing on thermal energy communities given the considerable share of thermal energy applications such as heating, cooling, and hot tap water. The simulation results articulate that energy communities are capable of contributing to the energy security of individual households. Results demonstrated the substantial potential of energy communities in CO2 emissions reduction (60% on average) while being affordable in the long run. In addition, the results show the importance of project leadership (particularly regarding the municipality) concerning energy security performances. Finally, the results reveal that the amount of available subsidy and natural gas prices are relatively more effective for ensuring high energy security levels than CO2 taxes.Energy & IndustryOrganisation and GovernanceEconomics of Technology and InnovationApplied Science