Survey of Stakeholders’ Views and Practices: Energy Policymaking in Switzerland

Abstract

Along with policy proposers and individual voters, key stakeholders play a crucial role in shaping the socio-political acceptance of energy policy. Understanding a broad landscape of energy stakeholders’ views and practices thus should be a central theme in energy transition research. The Energy Strategy 2050 (ES2050), a sweeping energy transition policy package in Switzerland, was adopted in 2017. Concrete policy goals implied by ES2050 are yet to be implemented. Although there is a large body of social acceptance studies focusing on individual voters, we have a relatively scant empirical understanding of how stakeholders in this domain perceive the policy goals and how perceptions are linked to their organizational characteristics. To elucidate Swiss energy stakeholders’ perceptions on key action targets implied by recent energy policies in Switzerland, we analyzed data from our original survey with 364 organizations. We examined their views on concrete policy goals related to electric mobility, deep geothermal energy, wind energy, hydropower, and planned phase-outs of renewable energy subsidies. When asked to rate how realistic these goals appear to them, the majority of the stakeholders responded negatively. Furthermore, our findings indicate that, despite the considerable diversity and the overall pessimism in their feasibility perceptions, those that consider goals to be realistic are more likely to be active in the media. This is a concerning finding as the public might receive a biased impression via the media about the level of consensus among the stakeholders, who could, at times, be seen by the public as experts on the topic.