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Synthesis of incentive structures: input for Participatory Integrated Assessment

par Pel, Bonno ; [et al.]
Organisme financeur Horizon 2020 (H2020-LCE-2017)
Publication Publié, 2019-12-19

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Résumé :

This deliverable develops a comprehensive overview of the incentive structures that shape the mainstreaming of RES prosumerism. The Incentive Structures Framework (ISF) presented here identifies and describes 17 key societal conditions, classified along the three clusters of regulatory-financial conditions, technological-material conditions and cultural-discursive conditions. The relevance is empirically substantiated through brief summaries of observations from PROSEU thematic work packages, Living Labs, and survey results. The ISF also clarifies how these societal conditions can give rise to different forms of RES prosumerism and to tensions and crossroads in the mainstreaming process. The ISF is substantiated through three analyses of political-economical, technological-infrastructural, and organisational crossroads in the mainstreaming process. Building on insights from transitions theory, institutional theory, scholarship on societal innovation and literature on RES prosumerism, this integrative endeavour has been guided by the commitment to take transitions directionality seriously: The mainstreaming of RES prosumerism should not be confused for a singular innovation trajectory on which to accelerate and overcome barriers – it rather amounts to a complex crossroads of multiple possible RES prosumerism futures, with very different implications in terms of citizen participation, inclusiveness and transparency. The ‘incentive structures’ shaping the RES prosumerism process have been identified by considering RES prosumerism as a bundle of new actions, objects and ideas. Each of these innovation dimensions is shaped by particular sets of societal conditions. Gathering, classifying and merging data across the different PROSEU work packages, the framework has been fine-tuned into a comprehensive set of ‘incentives’. They cover the range of regulative, normative and cognitive institutions distinguished in institutional theory, and are in line with conceptualizations of RES prosumerism in terms of socio-technical practices or ‘niche’ innovations. The ISF combines and organises the thematic PROSEU analyses of business models, technologies, regulatory frameworks, as well as the data on RES prosumerism collectives and networks as gathered through the survey and in-depth analyses of Living Labs. The ISF as developed highlights how RES prosumerism is incentivized and dis-incentivized through a range of financial, regulatory, technological and cultural societal conditions that change over time and across geographical contexts. This helps to understand the broad range of possible RES prosumerism futures that is sketched in recent literature, ranging from expectations of breakthrough to accounts of co-optation, commercialization, and retrenchment of dominant powers in the energy system. This multiplicity of possible futures has been elaborated through three explorations of directionality, each of which are written as stand-alone practice briefs. Each brief zooms in on a particular crossroad in the RES prosumerism mainstreaming process, these analyses elaborate in more detail how the identified societal conditions can make a difference. Systematically disclosing the range of possible RES prosumerism futures and clarifying the underlying societal ‘incentives’, the presented ISF provides important building blocks for the subsequent task of Participatory Integrated Assessment (PIA). Next to this key task of preparing for the PIA, the framework also serves broader project tasks of synthetic insight, reflection on possible data gaps, and connecting the partial analyses developed in other work packages.