The study aims to identify the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of renewable energy deployment in regional energy transitions for the regions of Bavaria, Georgia, Québec, São Paulo, Shandong, Upper Austria, and Western Cape, which comprise a political and scientific network called the Regional Leaders’ Summit (RLS) and RLS-Sciences, respectively. The results classify current renewable energy usage for electricity, heat and fuel production, existing renewable energy potentials, sound legal frameworks to support renewable energy, ongoing research and development activities and expertise in renewable energy conversion and storage as strengths. That fossil fuels still hold a significant share in gross inland energy consumption, energy-intensive industrial structures continue to be supported by fossil fuels and grid access is limited for renewables are identified as weaknesses. The main opportunities are green economies, climate change mitigation and technological innovations. Associated threats are demographic developments, lack of social acceptance and renewable energy resource volatility. We conclude that these regions’ energy systems could potentially enable the realization of a strong integration of renewables and cover partially distributed, decentralized energy systems with embedded energy storage, and the application of smart technologies. Furthermore, we discover that the role of governments in guiding and managing regional energy transitions is highly important.

To meet the future energy and climate targets in 2030 and 2050 in Austria, it is absolutely necessary to apply extensive measures to reduce the use of fossil fuels. By then, Austria will have to realize a 36% decrease (from 2005 levels) for emission sources outside the European Emission Trading System. The transport sector is a key driver of recently increasing greenhouse gas emissions in Austria. Hence, we examine the macroeconomic and ecologic impacts of an environmental tax reform in Austria from 2020 to 2030. We implement a revenue-neutral tax reform that raises revenues via an increase of the mineral oil tax on diesel and petrol consumption and redistributes these fiscal revenues to the industry and households. In addition, increased fossil fuel taxing would enhance revenues for green investments in e-mobility and thermal refurbishment that stimulate the Austrian economy. The simulation analyses focus on central macroeconomic variables as gross domestic product, employment, investment and private consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. We find that the proposed environmental tax reform generates a triple dividend, leading simultaneously to economic growth and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions while low-income households can be fully compensated.

Starting in 2002, a continuous building of flood protection infrastructure aiming at preventing high monetary damages has been taking place in Upper Austria. As a result of investments in these flood protection measures between 2002 and 2015, significant positive effects on the gross regional product as well as on the employment level have been generated. However, the macroeconomic effects are found to depend substantially on the import quota for required materials.