Transition Pathways for a Low-Carbon Norway: Bridging Socio-technical and Energy System Analyses

Abstract

This study presents an interdisciplinary approach to analyze different transition pathways towards the sustainable development of a low-carbon society, focusing on Norway as a case. The study bridges a socio-technical perspective on sustainability transitions with techno-economic energy systems and regional-economic modelling analyses. Incorporating a socio-technical perspective in the scenario design allows us to envision pathways considering causal processes of technological and socio-institutional change, and potential transition bottlenecks. The resulting scenarios are used in the techno-economic energy system analysis to show cost-optimal energy system configurations, including varying levels of new renewable capacity needed, new conversion technologies, and fuel substitutions across all sectors leading to different decarbonization pathways for the Norwegian energy system by 2050. The regional-economy analysis addresses the impacts of these pathways on general economic growth and labor. The results show that higher levels of decarbonization are possible for Norway; however, potential bottlenecks can slow down the transition, while trade-offs in economic growth and development must be balanced out with decarbonization ambitions.