Is there room for renewable energy in
Flanders? (2003)
viWTA commissioned a study into the potential of renewable energy, the non-technological barriers and the social support for it in Flanders. The study was carried out by a research team, made up of Vito, 3E, and ODE-Flanders. It was meant to provide the Flemish Parliament with food for thought and discussion in view of the process of updating the Flemish climate policy plan and the further development of a coherent renewable energy policy.
Over the past few decades, renewable energy technologies have gone through a strong technological evolution, as far as their performance and reliability are concerned. They now seem mature enough for market introduction. Nonetheless, several barriers still form a gap between technical development and market development:
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Internal barriers, inherent to the renewable energy sources, such as the changeable and unpredictable character of the available volume of renewable
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energy fluxes;
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External non-technological barriers, i.e. institutional, economical and social resistance.
The study dealt with five questions:
1. Which estimates for the potential of renewable energy are available in Flanders?
2. Which are the non-technological obstacles for the expansion of renewable energy in Flanders?
3. How big is the social basis for renewable energy in Flanders?
4. How can participative processes play a role in increasing the social basis for renewable energy?
5. What policy proposal can be distilled from an analysis of the answers on the above-mentioned questions?
First, the report gives a systematic overview of the available studies on the potential of power and heat generation with renewable energy sources. This overview is a selection of national and international studies analysing the technically realizable potential for Flanders and/or Belgium. The report does not calculate any own potential figures but compares the hypotheses, definitions and time horizon that were put forward in the various studies. It also proposes a lower and an upper limit for each renewable energy technology. On top of that, the text also briefly discusses the reduction of our carbon dioxide emissions by means of renewable energy sources and provides a list of recommendations for further investigation. As a general conclusion, according to this study, the potential for the production of electricity with renewable resources by the year 2020 will be comprised between 6 en 21% of the future consumption (within a growth scenario).
The second part of the study discusses more in-depth the non-technological barriers for the introduction of renewable energy sources. The analysis of the barriers is both general and specific for each of the renewable energy sources. The two themes ‘social basis’ and ‘participation’ are developed in two steps. After a theoretical definition (library search), the second part presents a series of national and international case studies, selected on the basis of the attention they give to the participative approach of the issue.
Both the analysis of the obstacles and the case studies lead to the formulation of concrete policy recommendations, for individual technologies and in general, and bearing in mind the participative aspect.
