Participatory methods for supporting an accelerated development and implementation of renewable energy sources (PM renewable)

Climatic change has a high impact on natural systems and the human society. Therefore the reduction of greenhouse gases is an important goal. One central strategy for reaching this goal is an accelerated development of renewable energies. Germany aims at increasing the proportion of renewable energies to 18% of the final energy consumption in 2020, from 5.8% in 2005. The German state of Hessen aims at 20% in 2020, from 5.4% in 2006. 100% energy out of renewables is the longtherm goal. In Hessen and elsewhere, it is well known that renewable energies development offers economic growth and employment opportunities, especially for small and medium sized companies. A large number of barriers make a fast implementation of renewable energies difficult, including legal  frameworks, administrative barriers, economic constraints and technical problems. For example, non-renewable energy prices do not include all environmental and social costs; some renewable energies lack public acceptance.

For reaching the 2020 goal in Hessen, and the long-term goal of 100% renewables, a variety of actors need to cooperate. Each of the relevant actors has specific problem perceptions and goals that guide their actions. On the one hand it is very useful to get to know their problem perceptions and to use the actors` knowledge to identify sustainable, efficient and feasible strategies of action. On the other hand it is important to create, in a participatory process, the possibility for exchanging problem perceptions among the actors, and in this way to assist social learning. It is state of the art that participation leads to a better identification and realisation of sustainable strategies of action. However, there is no well-established standard design for successful participatory processes. The goal of our project is to support an accelerated development and implementation of renewable energies by setting up a participatory process in Hessen in which we test an innovative combination of participatory methods.

The participatory process will be organized around three workshops with about 15 representatives of the most relevant actors in the problem field of renewable energies in Hessen (energy sector, financial sector, public decision makers, NGOs etc). Three modeling approaches will be used to support participation, and simulation design and model outputs will be discussed in the workshops. These modeling approaches include actor modeling (AM), actor-based modeling (ABM) and Bayesian Networks (BN). For example, actor modeling, a software-supported formalized actor analysis, allows to identify the different problem perceptions of institutional actors. AM will be done before the first workshop, based on interviews with the representatives of the actors that will later take part in the workshops. The results of AM will be communicated among the stakeholders using a World Café format. Within the participatory process, alternative actor-based scenarios of the development and implementation of renewable energies will be developed. The impact of the applied participatory methods on social learning of the involved actors (or rather their representatives) will be evaluated.

Keywords: :Actor analysis and modelling, Bayesian Networks, participatory methods, renewable energy, scenario development, social learning

Participants: Meike Düspohl, Petra Döll

Duration:10/2010 – 09/2012

Funding: Stateof Hessen

Contact:duespohl@em.uni-frankfurt.de