The effect of discourse networks on the leading support schemes for Renewable Electricity

Abstract

An increasing number of organizations are forced or want to contribute to bringing down CO2-equilivent emissions by investing in electricity generation using renewable sources. Non-electricity businesses are entering this field without having necessarily the knowledge of how renewables have been supported in Europe in the past and what actors have been active in affecting policy governing this field. This lack of understanding can lead to only a select group of stakeholders to be involved in policy making which can decrease the public acceptance and the legitimacy of the decisions taken on European level.

Due to a lack of a clear overview in the literature, this research aimed to understand how different stakeholder discourses had led to the current framework of the European electricity market in general and more specifically to the current framework for support schemes.

The European framework in which support schemes had to function has been described by going through all the Renewable Energy Directives. In addition, the most common deployed support schemes between 1997 and 2018 have been introduced and explained. This information was subsequently used to create 6 concepts that identified actors could agree with or disagree with. The positions of the actors were identified by coding a database accessed through LexisNexis which resulted in discourse networks. Expert interviews and consultation documents functioned as validation of the analysis.

This has resulted in the identification of two main coalitions. The first coalition consisted of the renewable industry, environmental organizations and Member States who favored national Feed-in tariffs. The second coalition consisted of the electricity sector and green certificate interest groups who wanted to have market-based support schemes that functioned in harmonization throughout Europe. Insights from Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) and Punctuated Equilibrium Theory (PET) were partly confirmed in the sense that several coalitions were trying to have their preferred mean being mainstream in Europe. The end result can be explained by a hegemonic coalition, political feasibility and court cases. The gradual cost reduction of renewables and the increasing distortion of Feed-in tariffs has led to more market-based instruments in the final stage of the research period. Affecting European legislation has turned out to be extremely hard for organizations even when gathered together in coalitions. External influences seem to be necessary to really change the course in European legislation.