Dario D'Ingiullo (p), Claudio Di Berardino, Davide Quaglione, Alessandro Sarra

Dylan Jong

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Dylan Jong (p), Philip McCann, Viktor Venhorst

Dario D'Ingiullo

See extended abstract

Rozanne Spijkerboer (p), Christian Zuidema, Tim Busscher, Jos Arts

Renewable energy requires extensive amounts of space and is highly visible in the landscape, because of the relatively low power density of renewable sources compared to fossil sources. Integration of renewable energy with other land use functions provides opportunities to use this limited amount of space efficiently. However, various policy domains, each guided by their own institutional framework, are involved in these integration efforts. These institutional frameworks require harmonization because they often overlap or because there are no specific institutions designed to guide these integration efforts at all. This paper develops an analytical approach to identify and explain institutional barriers that hamper such integration efforts, which is illustrated using the case of integration between renewable energy and transport infrastructure in the Netherlands. This analytical approach is based on the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework combined with insights from Discursive Institutionalism, to capture both the ‘rules of the game’ (structure of the action situation) and the ‘play of the game’ (agency of actors within the action situation). Institutional barriers are conceptualized as the misalignment between the ‘rules of the game’ and the ‘play of the game’. Theoretically, insight in these barriers is a first step towards understanding how actors (aim to) change institutions in light of changing circumstances and ambitions. Empirically, these insights help in identifying starting points for institutional designs that can aid the energy transition by finding physical space for renewable energy in combination with other land use functions.