Future exploration energy systems – Flanders 2050
Future exploration energy systems – Flanders 2050
The project ‘Future exploration energy systems – Flanders 2050’ fits in with viWTA’s program called ‘Energy and climate: a debate in Flanders’. This program is intended to be a contribution to the enhancement of the social debate and to a better-founded decision-making process in the Flemish Parliament with regard to the Flemish energy system.
Belgium has committed itself within the burden sharing in the European Union to a 7,5% reduction of the emission of the principal greenhouse gases, compared to the reference year 1990. To achieve that objective, the Flemish government developed its Climate policy plans imposing the necessary measures. Every two years, a progress report, in fact an update of the climate policy plan, is presented to and discussed in the Flemish parliament.
The discussions show a growing awareness in political circles that a thorough reversal of policy is inevitable for a substantial reduction of the emission of greenhouse gases. To ensure a secure energy supply in a sustainable manner and for the whole world population is one of the major challenges for the current generation. It is quite foreseeable that our society will have to face sudden changes in the way it supplies and uses energy.
From that point of view, viWTA has chosen an interactive process with experts, stakeholders and citizens, to develop scenarios with respect to the Flemish energy system (Flanders within N-W Europe) in 2050.
The organization of such an exploration process matches with the future-oriented exploration approach of a parliamentary institute for technology assessment (TA) that focuses on citizen participation around complex forms of technology. As a matter of fact, this is about a policy that will have to be pursued in a future context full of uncertainties.
This viWTA project serves four main objectives:
1. to develop a largely supported view on the future of the Flemish energy system;
2. to trace transition paths towards the desired future;
3. to translate these paths into policy recommendations meant to feed the debate about the post-Kyoto measures;
4. to consider the project as a pilot project which will allow to draw lessons for future interactive viWTA processes with regard to the approach and the method to be used.
The way viWTA projects are actually translated and the choice for a certain approach has
always to be understood within the following framework:
1. the commissioner (viWTA) has in advance contractually defined the big steps in the course of the process (see figure 1);
2. methodologically speaking, the project ‘Future exploration energy systems – Flanders 2050’ is an experiment. No scenario exercises with citizens have taken place in Belgium so far. It might enable us to learn a lot, as far as methodology is concerned. Therefore, in between the various steps in the process, several moments of reflection with the entire team have been built-in (researchers, facilitators, commissioner). Based upon the results of that reflection, new options have been chosen to permanently adjust and fine-tune the further course of the process;
3. the process decisions have systematically been discussed with the whole team. Nevertheless, the commissioner is ultimately responsibe for what has been decided.
Figure 1: the course of the project as it had been contractually defined beforehand
The path The path that finally led to the selection of one desired picture of the future had several distinctive phases, as described in the above-mentioned course of the process. First of all, we distinguished two big periods in the path: a 'foresight' and a 'backcasting' exercise.
The foresight exercise encompassed three steps: a definition workshop (preceding this project and therefore not represented in figure 1); knowledge-building and an exploration of the pictures of the future (scenario exercise).
The first step consisted of a definition workshop with experts: ‘Future exploration energy system – Flanders’. The aim of the workshop with the participation of experts was to lay the first foundation of a definition of the aspects that might prove relevant for the exploration of the possible future of the Flemish energy household. Amongst other things, the participants selected the most determining factors for the energy household, they defined the mutual relationships and importance of these factors, as well as their predictability, and indicated the relevant players in the debate on the future of the energy household. The workshop yielded an indicative result on what the experts consider to be the most important factors, actors, and their connections.
The second step consisted of a panel of citizens exploring a variety of different future scenarios for the Flemish energy system in 2050. Two weeks had been scheduled for the exploration, the first of which had been used to introduce the panel into the issue. During that first meeting, the main objectives were:
- to make a connection between oneself, energy and the future;
- to gain an insight in the relevant time perspective for an issue such as energy;
- to explore the notion of ‘long time future’;
- to explore the complexity of the energy system;
- to agree upon the quality of the process.
The central mission of the second weekend with the group of citizens was to imagine a few possible future scenarios about energy in Flanders in 2050. The main objectives during this second meeting were:
- to explore the determining factors of the energy system;
- to select the three most import determinants;
- to define various dimensions for each of these determinants, to describe extreme situations (dichotomies) for each of the dimensions and to list the possible consequences, both positive and negative, for each of the dichotomies;
- to combine the above-mentioned extreme situations into possible future scenarios and make a selection among those combinations;
- to develop the pictures of the future into real stories.
The backcasting exercise included the following steps:
- to let the citizens select their desired picture of the future;
- to come to a more detailed description of the picture of the future by an assessment on the basis of objectives that take priority;
- for each of the objectives, to indicate intermediate objectives and milestones with anchor points on a time scale: 2015, 2020, 2035, 2050. As a whole, these intermediate objectives have to be consistent;
- to formulate some initial policy recommendations to be completed and elaborated more in-depth afterwards.
The first step in the backcasting exercise consisted of the selection of the citizens’ most desirable picture of the future. To that end, a first meeting was planned with the experts, as well as a third weekend with the citizens panel. The objectives of this first confrontation with the experts were:
- to let the experts supply information to the citizens with respect to the completeness, the consistency, and conceivability of the scenarios at hand;
- to let the citizens adjust their pictures of the future by confronting them with the information of the experts;
- this should enable the citizens to select one of their pictures
The objectives of the third weekend with the citizens were:
- to chose one single scenario (i.e. the most desirable picture of the future), for the backcasting exercise with the experts;
- to fine-tune the chosen scenario, taking into consideration the remarks of the experts.
It was key for the process that the desired picture of the future the citizens had chosen would be fully accepted by the experts as an overall framework for their thinking exercise; that the attendant citizens were participating as partners in the experts’ thinking process and that the experts felt to be sufficiently prepared to formulate policy recommendations.
What lessons do we draw with respect to our future energy system?
What does a desirable energy system for the year 2050 look like, in the eyes of the Flemish citizen? And what can policy makers do to work towards that view (transition paths)? In trying to answer these questions, we will again follow the DPSIR framework (see figure below).
Figure 2: The extended DPSIR chain (driving forces, pressures, state, impact, response) as an integrative framework for an exploration of the future
First of all we have to mention some time and space restrictions of our analysis, as a consequence of the global project it fits in. The space-bound restriction is in the fact that we limit our observations to the 'energy system Flanders'. More specifically we focus on developing the various energy functions (living, working, travelling and recreating), from the point of view of the average Flemish citizen (now and in the future). This however does not imply that we close our eyes to the consequences outside our territory. As a matter of fact, the analysis of the 'energy system Flanders' also includes the complicated large-scale system that is necessary for the energy supply of a region such as Flanders. Of course, such an energy system always encompasses a large number of mutually interrelated energy chains, which extend over our neighbouring countries and beyond. Therefore the analysis also takes into consideration the impact of international evolutions. The time-bound restriction is here, that we limit our exploration of the future – again with respect to the interpretation of the energy functions — to the time horizon 2050. Neither does this restriction force us to ignore the consequences that fall outside the scope of this study. When discussing and choosing the desirable future scenario, we therefore did not want to disregard the negative long-term impact of our energy consumption, including the climate change due to the combustion of fossil fuels or the problem of nuclear waste involved with the use of this type of energy. Driving forces As mentioned before, the three chosen factors that determine the future evolution of the energy system are very important for the overall scenario exercise, not least because behind this choice is hidden a theory about the functioning of the energy system (who/what is affected by whom/what?). The citizens have been asked to select three determinants out of a list of seven, put together by the experts. The expert group or a big majority of it considered the items on the shortlist as relatively the most important. However, the fact that none of the (sets of) determinants had been indicated as relatively the most important by a big majority of the expert group proves the existence of different perspectives. During the expert workshops before the start of the project, these perspectives have not been further explored. Neither were the differences in perception sufficiently clarified during the second weekend. It is also clear that the determinants are partially interdependent. Lifestyle for instance could affect (the development of) the technology directed towards both the demand for and the supply of energy. The influence of the international political context on the Flemish policy is equally discernible. In other words, some of the above-mentioned factors will not develop autonomously. That was also shown during the ‘deepening step’ that was part of the expert workshop (Van Lieshout and Rijkens-Klomp, 2005). That deepening step was aiming at establishing the relationships between the factors and eventually overseen ‘underlying factors’ (or ‘basic causes' in our terminology). Those “underlying factors” proved to be situated in a spectrum ranging from socio-cultural, economic, ecological, and technological to institutional factors. The workshop also evidenced that especially the number of socio-cultural and economic factors affecting the 7 identified factors was considerable. We already mentioned that this shortcoming was to a certain extent set off by the expert feedback during further steps of the process. The ultimately chosen future scenario, i.e. 'John', has thus received a consistency, completeness, and conceivability boost. Nevertheless it appears to us that the future scenario 'John' is open to further improvement, for instance through a full-blown system analysis. In such a system analysis, the relationships between the various factors could be extensively elaborated. Furthermore, the system analysis would provide a basis for a causal examination of the developments that affect the system, both from within and from outside. This would enable us not only to identify the direct effects of certain changes but also their indirect consequences. Energy chain / Pressure Given the focus on citizen participation, the decision was taken not to develop the “supply aspect” of the chosen future scenario but rather to develop the four associated energy functions: living, working, travelling and recreating. As a consequence there was little specific (quantitative) information to draw a picture of the future energy chain and the environmental pressure that it would entail. But the successive workshops did give a series of 'indications' on how this energy system roughly would have looked like, especially when tailored to the life in residential areas. Figure 2 gives a very schematic overview of such a “smart distribution system”, the so-called “Energy Web”. In the figure below are represented several components of an energy system, in particular the various sources of energy (water power and wind power, solar energy, raw petroleum, ...), the storage of energy (pump houses, batteries, ...), the transformation of energy (fuel cell, microturbine, ...), the end user demand per sector (households, factories, businesses, transportation, ...), also focusing on an economical use of energy (energy-efficiency, ‘demand side management’ or DSM, ...), and the transportation and distribution of energy fluxes (through high- and low-voltage networks and others) in an integrated energy market. Figure 3: A schematic example of a future energy system, the “Energy Web” (source: Bonneville Power Administration) 
Further research will have to determine if such a picture of the future will be viable and affordable and map out the technical challenges, the environmental impact, and the (distribution of) local and central supply options that are likely to realize this picture of the future. State / Impact The information currently at hand does not at all allow us to discuss variables of the future energy system such as 'state' and 'impact' at great length. “Climate change”, “ecological carrying capacity”, “vulnerable Flanders” and “ethics” did belong to the 13 factors clustered by the experts, but they did not survive the selection procedure for the eight factors to be presented to the citizens. An eventual follow-up project would benefit greatly from a more accentuated picture of the future, which would also include politically supported quantitative objectives (e.g. with regard to energy-intensity of the economy, compulsory percentages of sustainable energy in the global energy provision, government-imposed greenhouse gas emission quota, etc.). That would also be important to define sharper, preferably quantitatively verifiable policy lines. Response When it comes to government intervention, the main result of the project lies in a number of global strategic insights in various subfields of the energy policy (environmental planning, tax instruments, technology to support energy savings at home, international policy). The process of tracing out transition paths is far from complete, since the current approach is indeed strongly focusing on the development of a linear image in various subfields. The possibility to formulate more specific policy recommendations depends upon how detailed the (quantitative) elaboration of the future scenario can be made. As long as it remains somehow vague, it will be impossible to make very specific statements with respect to the advisable policy. It is therefore strongly recommendable, in case of an eventual new project in the future, to provide at the same time a 'robust', politically supported future scenario, as a basis for an intensive process. After the experts have formulated concrete recommendations, the process should preferably also involve the policy-makers, in order to create the necessary platform for the advice that is given.