Two decades after the launch of Local Agenda 21 in Rio de Janeiro, we have witnessed the emergence and development of local initiatives in sustainable development. Local energy communities are a clear manifestation of this development. The questions the paper raises are as follows: can local energy initiatives be considered seedbeds of innovation? If so, how can such initiatives lead to innovations in the energy supply?

Increasing numbers of households install renewable energy production systems like photovoltaic panels thereby contributing to a more sustainable energy system. Other developments, like in-home storage or peer-to-peer exchange within a neighbourhood, also contribute to the transition. This paper explores the emerging rise of these prosumers of electricity and its implications, in particular for grid management and electricity supply in the Netherlands. With the help of an agent-based model, we illustrate the evolution of prosumption in a small Dutch-oriented residential community in five scenarios. The second part of the paper discusses the implications of the modelled rise in prosumption. Depending on the number of prosumers, combined with storage and peer-to-peer supply, we found a share of prosumption in this local community of about 28–30 %. The community will require less electricity from the central power plants. These model results also indicate that the management of the local network will become more important if more households become prosumers in combination with storage and peer-to-peer supply. These trends affect current business models of DSOs and electricity production and supply companies. The latter are facing a loss of turnover which needs to be compensated by developing alternative business models. And, DSOs have to deal with the new needs on the local grid which also require an adaptation of their business models. Developing business models in cooperation with local energy communities could be an attractive alternative to explore.

This paper analyses the implementation of renewable off-grid technologies in rural areas, especially where an extension to the national electricity grid was not considered economically feasible. Implementation of remote, stand-alone, electricity technologies as alternatives to a grid connection to provide sustainable electricity access have often failed with many planned projects not realised or abandoned. Our initial assumption was that stand-alone electricity project exhibiting higher scores on sustainability indicators would benefit communities more and make their endurance more likely. However, the impact of the stand-alone technology was often overruled or its quality weakened by government preferences wishing to realise a connection to the central electricity grid. Empirically, the study compares three cases of stand-alone micro-hydropower projects and three cases of stand-alone solar photovoltaic projects in Bogor Regency, Indonesia. It is based on qualitative document analysis, complemented by multiple rounds of semi-structured interviews and observations. The paper assesses the extent to which each project met indicators of technical, economic, social, environmental, and institutional sustainability. The paper tries to explain the endurance of the project from these sustainability scores and uses additional explanations from Ostrom’s Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework. The findings show that, for the studied local communities, the attractiveness of a grid connection overrules the virtues of a stand-alone electricity project, despite its quality, successful operation and impact. Our research also shows that government policy priorities changed in the rural electrification programme for some communities. In these situations, the off-grid rural electrification programme predominantly provided only temporary access to sustainable electricity for remote local communities that remained waiting and hoping for a grid connection to connect them to fossil fuel-dominated electricity.

Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) cycles are absolutely vital in maintaining sustainable food systems. Human activities disturb the natural balance of these cycles by creating enormous additional nutrient fluxes, causing eutrophication of waterways and pollution in land systems. To tackle this problem, sustainable nutrient management is required. This paper addresses sustainable nutrient management in two countries: The Netherlands and Finland. We adopt a critical perspective on resource politics, especially towards opportunistic policy strategies for the pollutant management of N and P. Two research questions are considered. First, what are the key systemic and policy failures that occurred in the N and P systems in the Netherlands and Finland between 1970 and 2015? And second, which lessons can be drawn when addressing the policy responses in the two countries to cope with these failures? The cases are analyzed within Weber and Rohracher’s framework that addresses “failures” preventing sustainable transitions. The results show that a number of failures occurred, besides market failures (over-exploitation of the commons, externalization of costs): lack of directionality, policy coordination, institutions, capabilities, infrastructure, demand articulation, and reflexivity. Policy responses in both countries resulted in ponderous policy frameworks that were adequate to tackle nutrient problems from the industrial sector and municipalities. However, both countries provided only a moderate response in terms of system-wide integrated policy frameworks to cope with sectoral-transcending issues. The agricultural use of N and P, in contrast to detergents, has not been subjected to strong regulatory measures.

Since 2001, the Indonesian government has issued natural gas master plans annually holding the planned gas infrastructure developments in order to motivate private parties who are not motivated due to the lack of the gas infrastructure increase. Since 2002, there were only three segments of gas pipelines that have been tendered (IEA, 2008) which are Gresik-Semarang and Bontang-Semarang (Kalimantan to Java Pipeline) in 2005, and Cirebon-Semarang in 2006 that have no supply anymore. The current transmission and distribution lines of 3,762.32 km and 4,554.54 km, respectively, are very small compared to developed countries in a similar gas resource position as Indonesia. The paper views the role of natural gas infrastructure for economic growth and energy security in Indonesia. The economic impacts of natural gas infrastructure are analyzed through the Computable General Equilibrium model. The results show that all financing scenarios have positive impacts on the various macro-economic indicators as well as on sectorial output and employment.

Purpose: The purpose of the paper is to provide to a better scientific understanding of Indonesia’s domestic gas allocation policy and its effects on the national economy and to answer the question of what best priorities can be set in allocating the natural gas for the domestic market to maximize the benefits for the national economy. Design/methodology/approach: The authors apply a Computabled General Equilibrium (CGE). The Social Accounting Matrix 2008 is used to calibrate the CGE Model. There are two scenarios proposed, each is simulated with certain percentage of gas supply curtailment (50 MMSCFD, Scenario A), (100 MMSCFD, Scenario B). Findings: It is confirmed that government’s current policy to give priority to oil production is not the optimum way to maximize added value of natural gas to Indonesian economy. While oil production generates state revenue, it is industry and petrochemical sector that induces high economic impacts because of strong backward and forward linkages. Research limitations/implications: Due to the limited data availability, it is assumed that the data on the SAM 2008 are valid for describing the structure of Indonesian economy. Practical implications: The paper provides recommendation to the government to revise gas allocation policy by changing the rank of consumers’ priority. Originality/value: This paper provides instruments to measure the impact of Indonesia’s domestic gas allocation policy. Finding the best hierarchy of consumer priorities is essential for maximizing added value of natural gas for the national economy.