Recent challenges such like climate, demographic, political, economy and market changes are the foundation for the establishment of the Regional Cooperative Westerkwartier (RCW) in the Northern Netherlands. This RCW is managing a vast range of regional programs and projects developed by multi-stakeholder groups within the region. These stakeholders are representatives of market, public administration, education, research and civil society. All the activities of the cooperative focus on strengthening the regional economy. One of the major programs is the development of a regional food chain (RFC) based on cooperation between small and medium sized enterprises and corporate purchasers. The cooperative is identifying its role within this RFC to develop this chain in an effective way. This article reflects the results of a literature study in the fields of green supply chain management and industrial symbiosis to understand the most important factors of chain development and enterprise symbiosis. Based on these results multiple in-depth interviews and a survey have been conducted. This results in a list of factors, ranked according to their importance for small and medium-sized enterprises. In the role of a RFC-agent the cooperative should focus on creating trust, achieving one overall goal and ensuring clear agreements within the RFC. Surprisingly, the factor “achieving a fair distribution of costs and benefits” throughout the chain is not as important as was expected to be. Based on these ranked factors the role of the RFC-agent has been clarified and an additional circular chain business model can be developed.
The sustainable energy transition asks for new and innovative solutions in the way society, government, energy market and clients (end users) approach energy distribution and consumption. The energy transition provides great opportunity to develop innovative solutions where in the dense built environment district heating and cooling are being strongly advocated.Traditionally, the energy systems in urban districts have been regulated by a top-down approach. With the rise of local and distributed sustainable sources for urban heating and cooling, the complexity of the heat/cold chain is increasing. Therefore, an organic and bottom-up approach is being requested, where the public authorities have a facilitating and/or directive role. There is a need for a new and open framework for collaboration between stakeholders. A framework that provides insight into the integral consideration of heating and cooling solutions on district level in terms of: organisation, technology and economy (OTE). This research therefore focuses on developing this integral framework towards widely supported heating and cooling solutions among district stakeholders.Through in-depth interviews, workshops and focus groups discussions, relevant stakeholders in local district heating/cooling of varying backgrounds and expertise have been consulted. This has led to two pillars in a framework. Firstly the definition of Key Success Factors and Key Performance Indicators to evaluate technical solutions in light of the respective context. Secondly, an iterative decision making process among district stakeholders where technical scenarios, respective financial business cases and market organisation are being negotiated. Fundamental proposition of the framework is the recurrent interaction between OTE factors throughout the entire decision making process. In order to constantly assure broad-based support, the underlying nature of possible barriers for collaboration are identified in a stakeholder matrix, informing a stakeholder strategy. It reveals an open insight of the interests, concerns, and barriers among all stakeholders, where solutions can be developed effectively.
Contribution to the conference: International Conference on New Pathways for Community Energy and Storage, 6-7 June 2019ABSTRACTThe community renewable energy is often seen as the way to address the societal challenge of energy transition. Many scholars foresee a key role for community energy in accelerating of the energy transition from fossil to renewable energy sources. For example, some authors investigated the transformative role of community renewable energy in the energy transition process (Seyfang and Smith, 2007; Seyfang and Haxeltine 2012; Seyfang et al. 2013; Seyfang et al. 2014; Smith et al. 2017; Martiskainen, 2017; Ruggiero et al. 2018; Hasanov and Zuidema, 2018; de Boer et al. 2018). Recognising the importance of community energy many scholars studied different internal and external conditions that contribute or hinder the success of local renewable energy initiatives (Walker et al. 2007; Bomberg and McEwen, 2012; Seyfang et al. 2013; Wirth, 2014; Hasanov and Zuidema, 2018; Ruggiero et al. 2018). One of such conditions contributing to the success of community energy initiatives is the capacity to adopt and utilize new technologies, for example, in the area of energy storage, which would increase flexibility and resilience of the communal energy supply systems.However, as noted by Ruggiero et al. (2018), the scholarship remains unclear on “how a very diverse and relatively small sector such as community energy could scale up and promote a change in the dominant way of energy production”. What is then the real transformative power of local renewable energy initiatives and whether community energy can offer an alternative to the existing energy system? This paper aims to answer these questions by confronting the critical review of theory with the recent practice of community energy in the Netherlands to build and scale up independent and self-sustaining renewable energy supply structures on the local and national scale and drafting perspectives on the possible role of community energy in the new energy system.
