Description
By 2050 the European Union (EU) aims to achieve a climate neutral economy, and in order to do this it is actively pursuing policies which will see its energy systems transition to clean & renewable systems. The EU’s energy transition policies push several public values in pursuit of this overarching policy objective of a carbon neutral and clean energy system, including the values of affordability, sustainability, security of supply, and fairness. These values will have to be operationalized and protected by infrastructure operators and other stakeholders of the energy systems, when operatingand investing in energy infrastructure systems. However, public values will often compete and
conflict with each other, and thus operators and other stakeholders will have to balance out the various public values and even make trade-offs when operationalizing them. Empirical studies in the Netherlands have shown that when conflicts between public values are improperly resolved it results in delays and failures in infrastructure projects. Infrastructure operators in the EU have received no guidance from policy makers on how they should balance & trade-off these values
when pursuing the energy transition, and in the absence of such guidance, operators are likely to
adopt simple rudimentary trade-off strategies such as alternating between different values during
different time periods or choosing to focus solely on one public value over others. This will likely
result in some key public values that underpin the energy transition being incorrectly traded-off,
which in addition to causing delays and failures in infrastructure projects, will also likely result in the
objectives of public being unachieved and/or unfulfilled. This issue will be further compounded in
energy infrastructure system projects where several infrastructure operators are involved and are
operating, as there may be conflicting approaches and strategies towards public values that are
adopted by the various operators. Delays or failure in such large-scale energy projects will make
the goal of a climate neutral European energy system less attainable, at least within the timeline
the EU set for itself. This paper argues that the decision to pursue certain public values and tradeoff between values is inherently a political decision, rather than a technical decision. Thus, that it is
necessary for infrastructure operators to base their decisions and strategies for trading-off public
values on the intention of policy makers rather than doing so arbitrarily. The paper argues that
infrastructure operators can do so if they base their decision frameworks for operationalizing and
trading off public values, on the principles of energy justice developed by Sovacool and good
governance principles. The reasoning being that the EU’s policies on the energy transition mirrors
the principles of energy justice, and given that energy justice, among other things is concerned with
just and equitable decision making throughout the energy cycle good governance principles should
be adopted. The paper concludes that by proactively identifying where values of the energy
transition conflict and creating frameworks to resolve the conflicts and mitigate tensions,
infrastructure operators may be able to facilitate the energy transition in the EU.
| Period | 2 Apr 2024 |
|---|---|
| Event title | The International Energy Justice Early Career Conference |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Tilburg, NetherlandsShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |