Assessment of Renewable Energy Technologies on Multiple Scales (ARTEMIS) - A Participatory Multi-Criteria Approach

Evaluation erneuerbarer Energietechnologien auf lokaler und nationaler Ebene (ARTEMIS) - Ein partizipativer Multi-Kriterien-Ansatz

Investigators
Reinhard Madlener (CEPE), Sigrid Stagl (Univ Leeds), Katharina Kowalski (Univ Leeds), Ines Omann (SERI), Fritz Hinterberger (SERI)

Partners
SERI - Sustainable Europe Research Institute, University of Leeds (School of the Environment)

Time Frame
6/2003 - 5/2006

Funding
Austrian Science Fund (FWF)

Project Website
http://www.project-artemis.net

Abstract
The aim of this project is to further develop and apply a participatory tool for the multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) of alternative renewable energy scenarios for Austria. The evaluation is performed at different levels (national, local/regional) and involves the compilation of a detailed criteria list for renewable energy technologies (RETs) to assess their socio-economic, environmental and institutional impacts and the social preferences revealed. The national case study will involve representatives from different interest groups and make use of existing renewable energy scenarios from earlier studies. The local/regional case study will be more project-oriented and involve local/regional community stakeholders. We apply the MCE tool PROMETHEE at the national level and Multi-Criteria Mapping at the local level and critically assess their suitability. The expected main results of the project are: (1) A contribution to current debates on different approaches for stakeholder participation regarding future energy options; (2) The creation of an impact matrix and MCE procedure to be used by decision-makers at different levels for exploring different energy scenarios and for revealing stakeholders' preferences; (3) Support for the design of MCE-based renewable energy promotion schemes; (4) Guidance and new insights for the structuring of decision-making processes in other problem settings.

Contents:

1 English Summary

2 Project Description

3 Results

4 Publications

5 Presentations

1 English Summary

The aim of this 3-year research project is to further develop and apply a participatory tool for the multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) of alternative renewable energy scenarios for Austria until 2020. The evaluation is performed at different levels (national, local/regional) and involves the compilation of a detailed list of criteria for renewable energy technologies (RETs) to assess their environmental, social, economic and institutional impacts on a life-cycle basis through exploration and integration of existing databases and studies. Uncertainty in the data will be addressed. The substitution of non-renewable (fossil, nuclear) energy sources will be explicitly included in the impact assessment of the energy scenarios envisaged. The social preferences will be explored both at the national and the local/regional level. The national case study will involve representatives from different interest groups and be based on existing renewable energy scenarios. The local/regional case study will be project-oriented and involve local/regional community stakeholders. Two different MCE methods - PROMETHEE and Multi-Criteria Mapping - are going to be applied at the different scales and their suitability critically reflected upon.

The main innovative aspects of the project are: (1) Conceptualisation and operationalisation of the social dimension of renewable energy technologies; (2) Critical consideration of the combined use of an analytical tool and participatory processes (comparison of multi-criteria evaluation methods; assessment of participatory processes).

The methods applied comprise:

• Scenario building: Several scenarios are specified, based on indicative national and local/regional policy targets, for example, as stipulated in the published energy concepts of the provinces (Länder) concerned, the Austrian Energy Act 2002, the new EU Directive on Renewable (2001/77/EC), and various prospective energy studies about future energy supply and use in Austria.

• Life-cycle analysis: A life-cycle-based analysis of the environmental impacts, and to the extent feasible also the economic, institutional and social impacts, of renewable energy technology diffusion will be employed for the formulation of the scenarios the stakeholders are going to be confronted with. For the environmental impact assessment, the model and database GEMIS Austria will mainly be used.

• Multi-criteria evaluation (MCE): Participatory MCE of renewable energy scenarios can help the decision-makers to better understand issues and, on the other hand, to develop a shared understanding between the stakeholders (social learning). In this project, two MCE methods will be applied: PROMETHEE at the national level and Multi-Criteria Mapping at the local/regional level.

• Expert interviews: Various experts are going to be consulted for the development of sound and meaningful scenarios and in order to establish a peer-review process for the validity of the impact indicators foreseen. These interviews also help to identify the experts' interests in participating in the deliberative processes that follow.

• Deliberative processes: In several stakeholder meetings deliberative processes will be initiated to explore the revealed social preferences and, if needed, to adjust the impact tables and scenarios considered (local/regional level). Sensitivity analyses will be used both to explore the strength of support for a decision and to further the communication among the different stakeholders.

The expected main results of the project are:

• A contribution to current debates on different approaches for the participation of stakeholders regarding future energy options;

• The creation of an impact matrix and MCE procedure that can be used by decision-makers at different levels for exploring different energy scenarios and for revealing stakeholders' preferences;

• Support for the design of MCE-based renewable energy promotion schemes;

• Guidance and new insights for the structuring of all sorts of decision-making processes.

2 Project Description

2.1 Aim

The proposed project aims at the use of existing and the development of new tools for the participatory exploration of scenarios concerning their potential to contribute to sustainable development. The scenarios envisaged will be explored at two different levels:

1. The national level, which is characterised by a few decision-makers with some expert knowledge and where accountability is most important;

2. The local/regional community level, which is characterised by a large number of stakeholders who are predominantly laypersons, and where it is most important that an agreement holds, even if formal ways to enforce it may be missing.
   

The MCE method used for comparing and assessing different RETs was developed and refined in recent years by two of the investigators (Madlener and Stagl, various references). The proposed project aims to extend and refine this framework and evaluate its practical applicability in the context of RET promotion. Austria is particularly suitable for the project, because it is a European country that is (1) actively pursuing to significantly increase the share of energy generated from renewable energy sources; and that (2) worldwide has leading expertise for several RETs (e.g. biomass-, solar-thermal- and PV-based); and that (3) has some leading expertise in the field of research addressed in the project.

In particular, three future energy scenarios at both the national (or regional) and the local community level will be explored. The exploration involves the following steps:

• Development of life-cycle-based impact matrices for modern RETs (currently there is a severe lack of data, especially concerning the social and to some extent also the macro-economic dimension); major conventional technologies will be included for comparisons and for the construction of the scenarios envisaged. This first step relies heavily on the integration of existing databases. Generic technology coefficients suitable for the European context will be employed, and if necessary carefully adapted, for use both at the national and the local/regional level. Uncertainty in the data is explicitly allowed for, i.e. ranges of values are provided whenever adequate and available.

• Exploring social preferences for different national and local /regional energy scenarios.

• Using and evaluating existing MCE tools and developing procedures for a participatory exploration of different (energy) scenarios at the national and the local/regional community level.
  

2.2 Scope

For a more sustainable development the increased substitution of modern renewable for conventional non-renewable (fossil, nuclear) energy technologies has to play a paramount role. In the energy sector, in particular, new technological developments, which are expected to lead to a shift towards a more decentralised use of energy technologies calls for a more intense participation of stakeholders. For these reasons renewable energy use is chosen as a most interesting and outstanding application for the mapping and participatory decision framework envisaged.

In addition to the need for substantial gains in energy and material efficiency, the development of renewable energy utilisation is seen to be central for a more sustainable energy supply system. Renewable energy also has an important role to play to create new businesses and local employment, to enhance social and economic cohesion, and to improve the security of supply by reducing the dependence on imported (and mainly fossil) energy sources. However, the increased use of renewable energy sources faces many barriers, partly because of existing market distortions (e.g. subsidisation of nuclear power or coal), technological lock-in situations (e.g. power supply systems based on centralised large-scale electricity generation, transmission schemes that have been heavily subsidised in the past in times of regional monopolistic markets), capital-intensity of many RETs, various sources of uncertainty, regulation and institutions favouring well-established energy technologies, lack of professional training and education, etc.

The use of participatory approaches can help to identify and tackle such barriers, and to better exploit driving factors, in a way that allows to achieve a high level of consensus (and thus the chance for an enhanced durability of decisions towards a more sustainable development).

When developing instruments for the promotion of renewable energy systems a major obstacle to be tackled is the fact that innovative RETs have to be compared with more mature systems. Basically, this will affect the economic appraisal, since some mature systems currently in operation are already amortised, while new concepts require major new investments. However, for a meaningful economic comparison, the discounted expenditures (operating expenditures and investments for production processes/abatement techniques) for a sufficiently long time period (e.g. 20 years) should be calculated. The consideration of this long time horizon allows for a comprehensive comparison, taking into account the technical lifetime of existing and planned installations.

2.3 Goals

With this project we want to contribute to the development of government, business and civil society strategies for a more sustainable energy supply, through a better understanding of the environmental, economic, social and institutional implications of energy production. It uses a process of scenario construction, and discussions based on the scenarios on the national and regional/local level, in order to explore the main research questions posed:

1. How do citizens' and policy-makers' preferences differ among alternative renewable energy scenarios?

2. Does participation in deliberative processess affect citizens' and policy-makers preferences regarding renewable energy utilisation?

3. How do different available multi-criteria methods contrast in supporting participatory multi-criteria evaluation?

4. What are the different qualities and potentials of deliberative processes on the national and on the regional/local level?
   

In addressing these research questions, we start from two basic assumptions:

1. The specific regional aspects and socio-economic dimension of renewable energy scenarios are important, but so far have not been systematically taken into account in LCA-studies on renewable energy technologies and in promotion policies;

2. MCE provides a useful framework for deliberative processes with stakeholders about social, economic, environmental, and institutional aspects of different energy scenarios.
   

As a result, decision-makers at local/regional or national levels will be better prepared to decide about measures for sustainability-oriented energy policies.

The participatory multi-criteria mapping with an evaluation tool for a sustainability-oriented promotion of RETs will, on the one hand, help the political decision-makers (DM) to better understand the relevant issues and, on the other hand, to build a shared understanding between the stakeholders (social learning). The results of our project will provide and integrate tools to:

1. Help the DM to identify and structure key issues for evaluating renewable energy use;

2. Help the DM to identify the various stakeholders and the characteristics of their interests;

3. Consider all relevant and available information about the social, environmental, institutional, and economic consequences of renewable energy technologies;

4. Build an outline analysis which captures the DM's perception of the problem, using common MCE methods (PROMETHEE with fuzzy option, Multi-Criteria Mapping), which incorporate both expert opinion on the potential impacts and their likelihood, and value judgements on the importance of these impacts;

5. Support meetings between primary stakeholder groups to explore their perceptions and values;

6. Explore possible consensus via a comprehensive sensitivity analysis (aim for a balanced decision);

7. Report the process in a way which both explains the rationale behind the final decision and which lets secondary stakeholders explore the decision and understand the reasoning. To make this information available, a content management system* can be applied.

* Content management systems are groupware applications that allow a group of persons to share documents via a web interface; documents can be checked-in, checked-out, reserved, etc.

3 Expected Results

The expected main results of the project are:

• A contribution to current debates on different approaches for the participation of the public regarding future energy options;

• The creation of an impact matrix and MCE procedure that can be used by decision-makers at different levels for exploring different energy scenarios and for revealing stakeholders' preferences;

• To aid the design of MCE-based renewable energy promotion schemes;

• To offer guidance and new insights for the structuring of all sorts of decision-making processes.

4 Publications

• Madlener R., Stagl S. (2005). Sustainability-guided promotion of renewable electricity generation, Ecological Economics, 53(2), 147-167. [pdf, 602 kB] (Elsevier)

• Madlener R., Stagl S. (2001). Quotenregelungen mit Zertifikathandel und garantierte Einspeisevergütungen für Ökostrom: Sozio-ökologisch-ökonomische Bewertung förderungswürdiger Technologien, Zeitschrift für Energiewirtschaft, Jg. 25, Heft 1, pp. 53-66.

• Madlener R. (2001). How to Maintain Competition and Diversity? A socio-ecological-economic assessment of bioenergy options with a focus on CHP, Proceedings of the Workshop "Socio-economic aspects of bioenergy systems: Challenges and opportunities", Alberta, Canada, 28-31 May 2001, Energy Institute Hrvoje Pozar on behalf of IEA Bioenergy Task 29, Zagreb/Croatia, pp.71-75 (ISBN 953-6474-34-4).

• Madlener R., Stagl S. (2001). Sozio-ökologisch-ökonomische Beurteilung handelbarer Zertifikate und garantierter Einspeisetarife für Ökostrom (Socio-ecological-economic evaluation of tradable certificates and guaranteed feed-in tariffs for "green" power; in German), 2nd International Energy Economics Conference "Strategien und Instrumente für den Wettbewerb in der Energiewirtschaft" (Strategies and Instruments for Competition in the Energy Sector), Vienna University of Technology, Vienna/Austria, 21-23 February 2001. (pdf, 588 kB)

• Madlener R., Stagl S. (2000). Promoting Renewable Electricity Generation through Guaranteed Feed-in Tariffs vs Tradable Certificates: An Ecological Economics Perspective, 3rd Biennial Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE), Vienna/Austria, 3-6 May 2000. (pdf, 90 kB)

5 Presentations

• Madlener R. (2001). How to Maintain Competition and Diversity? A socio-ecological-economic assessment of bioenergy options with a focus on CHP, International IEA Bioenergy Task 29 Workshop "Socio-economic aspects of bioenergy systems: Challenges and opportunities", Alberta, Canada, 28-31 May 2001.

• Madlener R. (2001). Sozio-ökologisch-ökonomische Beurteilung handelbarer Zertifikate und garantierter Einspeisetarife für Ökostrom, 2nd International Energy Economics Conference "Strategien und Instrumente für den Wettbewerb in der Energiewirtschaft", Vienna University of Technology, Vienna/Austria, 21-23 February 2001.

• Madlener, R. (2000). Feed-in Tariffs and Tradable Certificates for Renewables from an Ecological Economics Perspective, Invited presentation at the Centre for Energy Economics and Policy (CEPE), ETH Zurich, 14 September 2000.

• Madlener R., Stagl S. (2000). Promoting Renewable Electricity Generation through Guaranteed Feed-in Tariffs vs Tradable Certificates: An Ecological Economics Perspective, 3rd Biennial Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE), Vienna/Austria, 3-6 May 2000.