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The Dutch Energy Transition Approach

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International Economics of Resource Efficiency

Abstract

The term transition is employed by various scholars and organisations working on sustainable development. The first book containing these terms was the book The Transition to Sustainability. The Politics of Agenda 21 in Europe, edited by Timothy O’Riordan and Heather Voisey, published in 1998. This book was followed by two other books which similar titles: Our Common Journey: A transition toward sustainability by The Board on Sustainable Development of the US National Research Council (NRC 1999) and Sustainable development: The challenge of transition edited by Jurgen Schmandt and C.H. Ward contained contributions from Frances Cairncross, Herman Daly, Stephen Schneider which came out in 2000.

This paper has been previously published in International Economics and Economic Policy, Special Issue on “International Economics of Resources and Resource Policy”, Volume 7, Numbers 2–3/August 2010.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Various contributions on the idea of co-evolution steering for sustainable development can be found in the special issue of The International Journal of Sustainable Development and World Ecology.

  2. 2.

    This section comes from Geels and Kemp (2007).

  3. 3.

    Based on Rotmans et al. (2000, 2001) who based themselves on Verbong (2000).

  4. 4.

    It may be called the societal transition approach because it has a stronger focus on (societal) actors and political conflict as primary drivers of transformations.

  5. 5.

    DRIFT stands for the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions.

  6. 6.

    First ideas about transition management were created in the project “Transitions and transition management” for the fourth National Environmental Policy Plan (NMP4). In this project, a group of scientists and policy makers met to discuss a new strategic framework. A description of the coproduction process can be found in Kemp and Rotmans (2009) and Smith and Kern (2009). After the project the TM model was further developed by Derk Loorbach and Jan Rotmans and more or less independently by the Ministry of Economic Affairs (a description and discussion of this is given by Loorbach 2007).

  7. 7.

    EZ is the Ministry of Economic Affairs, VROM is the Ministry of Health, Spatial Planning and Environment, V&W is the Ministry of Traffic and Water, LNV the Ministry of Agriculture and Nature, BUZA the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

  8. 8.

    In 2009 the official goals for 2020 are: 2% rate of energy saving a year, 20% share for renewable energy and 30 reduction of CO2.

  9. 9.

    The formal tasks of the Regieorgaan are: (1) to create a basis for support among public and private parties for the energy transition to stimulate the design, formulation and implementation of transition paths, (2) to actively stimulate the bundling of ambitions, ideas about possibilities, knowledge and experience of business, (3) to stimulate cohesion between the different activities of the energy transition and to guard and monitor progress, (4) to promote long-term planning for the energy transition and the development and implementation of transition paths, (5) to make recommendations to Ministers about the energy transition and the implementation of transition paths on the basis of monitoring, analysis and evaluations, (6) to identify, select and stimulate new developments, initiatives and innovations relevant to the energy transition, based on ambitions and competences of market actors and government energy transition goals, (7) to make recommendations to Ministers for what they can do in terms of policy interventions for the energy transition, (8) to evaluate the transition paths every 4 years, to actualize them and to make recommendations for an actualization of long-term plans, (9) to create a network of public and private partners for the promotion of clear communication between the parties of the energy transition and between the transition paths, (10) to promote information provision for the general public about the energy transition.

  10. 10.

    In the Netherlands many vehicles are leased from companies. People driving a leased vehicle must add 25% of the value of the car to their income before taxes and pay taxes over this extra sum. If you lease a battery electric vehicle, 10% of the value of the car is subjective to income taxes; for hybrid electric vehicles it is 14%. Charging points are up for a fiscal advantage of 20%. The tax incentives for cars proved very effective: in the first 5 months of 2009, 7,456 hybrid electric cars were sold in the Netherlands, an increase of 63% compared to the same period in 2008. Between 2008 and 2009 the number of HEV doubled: from 11,000 to 23,000.

  11. 11.

    In Kemp (2009) the various criticisms leveled against transition management are discussed more extensively.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. UNU-MERIT, ICIS, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    René Kemp

Authors
  1. René Kemp
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. , Research Group 3, Wuppertal Institut, Döppersberg 19, Wuppertal, 42103, Germany

    Raimund Bleischwitz

  2. Europäisches Institut für Internationale, Wirtschaftsbeziehungen (EIIW) e.V., Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Rainer-Gruenter-Straße 21, Wuppertal, 42119, Germany

    Paul J.J. Welfens

  3. East-West Center, East-West Road 1601, Honolulu, 96848-1601, USA

    ZhongXiang Zhang

Appendices

Appendix 1 Overview of Transition Platforms, Pathways and Experiments

Platforms

Pathways

Chain efficiency

Goal: savings in the annual use of energy in production chains of:

 

 40 à 50 PJ by 2010

KE 1: Renewal of production systems

 150 à 180 PJ by 2030

KE 2: sustainable paper chains

 240 à 300 PJ by 2050

KE 3: sustainable agricultural chains

Green resources

Goal: to replace 30% of fossil fuels by green resources by 2030

GG 1: sustainable biomass production

 

GG 2: biomass import chain

 

GG 3: co-production of chemicals, transport fuels, electricity and heat

 

GG 4: production of SNG

 

GG 5: innovative use of biobased raw materials for non-food/non-energy applications and making existing chemical products and processes more sustainable

New gas

Goal: to become the most clean and innovative gas country in the world

NG 1: energy saving in the built environment

 

NG 2: micro and mini CHP

 

NG 3: clean natural gas

 

NG 4: green gas

Sustainable mobility

Goals:

DM 1: hybrid and electric vehicles

Factor 2 reduction in GHG emissions from new vehicles in 2015

DM 2: biofuels

Factor 3 reduction in GHG emissions for the entire automobile fleet 2035

DM 3: hydrogen vehicles

 

DM 4: intelligent transport systems

Sustainable electricity

Goal: A share of renewable energy of 40% by 2020 and a CO2-free energy supply by 2050

DE 1: wind onshore

 

DE 2: wind offshore

 

DE 3: solar PV

 

DE 4: centralised infrastructure

 

DE 5: decentralised infrastr.

Built environment

Goal: by 2030 a 30% reduction in the use of energy in the built environment, compared to 2005

GO 1: existing buildings

 

GO 2: innovation

 

GO 3: regulations

Energy-producing greenhouse

Goals for 2020:

KE 1: solar heating

 Climate-neutral (new) greenhouses

KE 2: use of earth heat

 48% reduction in CO2 emissions

KE 3: biofuels

 Producer of sustainable heat and energy

KE 4: efficient use of light

 A significant reduction in fossil fuel use

KE 5: cultivation strategies and energy-low crops

 

KE 6: renewable electricity production

 

KE 7: use of CO2

  1. Source: Smith and Kern (2009), http://www.creatieve-energie.nl/ and internet search

Appendix 2 Electricity Generated from Renewable Sources (% of Gross Electricity Consumption)

Table 8
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Kemp, R. (2011). The Dutch Energy Transition Approach. In: Bleischwitz, R., Welfens, P., Zhang, Z. (eds) International Economics of Resource Efficiency. Physica-Verlag HD. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2601-2_9

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