Governing the Energy Transition Reality, Illusion or Necessity?

The Energy Transition, the inevitable shift away from cheap, centralized, largely fossil-based energy systems, is one of the core challenges of our time. This book provides a coherent and novel insight into the nature of this challenge and possible strategies to accelerate and guide such transitions. It brings together prominent European scholars and practitioners from the fields of energy transition research and governance to draw attention to the current complex dynamics in the energy domain, and offer elegant and provocative explanations for current crises and lock-ins. They identify multiple energy transition pathways that emerge and increasingly compete, and emphasize the need and possibilities for novel governance. By analysing the complexity of energy transition processes and the difficulties in shifting to sustainable pathways, this text questions the extent to which actually governing energy transitions is already reality, just an illusion, or a bare necessity.

1. Introduction Geert Verbong and Derk Loorbach 2. Setting the Stage for the Energy Transition Vincent Lagendijk and Geert Verbong3. Energy Transitions in Practice: The Case of Global Indoor Climate Change Elizabeth Shove 4. Resisting Change? The Transnational Dynamics of European Energy Regimes Erik van der Vleuten and Per Högselius 5. Carbon Capture and Storage: Sustainable Solution or Reinforced Carbon Lock-in? Philip Vergragt 6. Analyzing Emerging Sustainable Energy Niches in Europe: A Strategic Niche Management Perspective Rob Raven 7. Motors of Sustainable Innovation: Understanding Transitions from a Technological Innovation System’s Perspective Roald Suurs and Marko Hekkert 8. Civil Society in Sustainable Energy Transitions Adrian Smith 9. Future Electricity Systems: Visions, Scenarios and Transition Pathways Geert Verbong and Frank Geels 10. The Dutch Energy Transition Project (2000–2009) Frans van der Loo and Derk Loorbach 11. Working in the Science-Policy Interface: Transition Monitoring in the Dutch Energy Transition Program Mattijs Taanman 12. An International Perspective on the Energy Transition Project Florian Kern 13. Energy Governance in the European Union: Enabling Conditions for a Low Carbon Transition? Måns Nilsson 14. Conclusion: Is Governance of the Energy Transition a Reality, an Illusion or a Necessity? Derk Loorbach and Geert Verbong.

Geert Verbong is an Associate Professor at the School of Innovation Sciences, Eindhoven University of Technology. Derk Loorbach is managing director of DRIFT, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.