Sharing our Sunlight: Evaluating Access to Solar Energy in Light of a Just Energy Transition

As the effects of climate change are more and more materializing around the globe it is ever more important to reduce our reliance on a fossil fuel based energy system. When coupling this to an ongoing trend of urbanization in many places across the world, the energy systems of our cities become of particular interest. However, the transition away from a fossil fuel based system towards a renewable energy based system is a complex sociotechnical process that in part relies on the extent to which households are able to adopt energy efficient technologies. Not all households are equally capable of investing in these technologies, causing some households to have better access to participate in the renewable energy transition. This unequal access to the renewable energy transition causes an unequitable distribution of energy efficient technologies and could potentially lock-in or perpetuate current injustices. To prevent this from happening there is a need for energy policy that supports socioeconomic groups across society, that have inadequate access to the renewable energy transition. In order to design such policy it is essential to first of all identify who these groups are, and secondly where they are located. As the renewable energy transition is still in its early stages, these insights are currently lacking in literature.Considering the fact that solar PV is a major driver of the renewable energy transition, this thesis in part addresses this knowledge gap by spatially analyzing which socioeconomic groups in the urban environment lack access to solar PV and where these groups are located. Access to solar PV in this context is defined as: the freedom of individuals or households to decide whether or not to adopt residential solar PV energy resources, dependent on the existence of one or more barriers. Secondly, does the research assess how access to solar PV resources spatially intersects with the ability to generate solar energy through these resources. The location that is selected as the area of study for this research is the city of The Hague, Netherlands. A framework is constructed to assess access to solar PV using the Theory of Planned Behavior originating from social sciences, which is frequently used to model adoption behavior of novel energy technologies. To evaluate the technical PV potential of the case-area the ArcGIS Solar Analyst Tool is applied. A K-means clustering analysis is performed to find any meaningful patterns in the distribution of access to solar PV across the area of study.The key findings of this study are:•Access to solar PV resources is unequally distributed across the Hague. Large parts of The Hague have unfavorable characteristics for solar PV adoption.•The highest levels of technical PV potential are found in areas that are considered to have poor access to solar PV. As a consequence, currently the majority of technical PV potential within the case area is likely to remain unexploited due to poor access to solar PV within these areas.•There is a need for energy policy that focuses on the groups that have poor access to solar PV and are unserved by current energy policy focused on stimulating adoption of solar PV. These groups are non-home owners in the private rental sector, home-owners that share ownership of the roof of a shared building and households that are provided housing by social housing corporations.Further research could focus on exploring and evaluating policy design that is aimed at supporting socioeconomic groups that currently lack access to the renewable energy transition. This is important in order to ensure that the renewable energy transition makes its way throughout all layers of society.Industrial Ecolog