CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2018
| Author | Flora Borek |
|---|---|
| Title | Conceptualizing energy transitions in Austria and Switzerland: A historical comparative analysis of different electricity use paths |
| Summary | Switzerland and Austria share significant commonalities, which predestines for similar developments with regard to the use of resources for electricity production: Both countries are economically wealthy, show a similar development of electricity use and share similar topographical conditions not only for the use of hydropower, but also wind power. However, today, the share of wind power in Switzerland’s primary electricity supply is only 0.2 percent, while in Austria, the share converges already towards 10 percent. At the same time, Switzerland operates five nuclear reactors, whereas Austria decided not to put its already constructed nuclear power plant into operation. The study at hand aims to explore the reasons for these striking differences by analyzing the historical development of electricity use from the beginning of the 21st century, taking into account important aspects from the economic, socio-technical and political perspectives on energy transitions. Thereby, the aim is to contribute to the existing research body on energy transitions, whereby comparative country historical analyses have remained rare. In this regard, it is assumed that analyzing transitions while integrating the time aspect helps to identify path dependencies which might be neglected in short-time analyses. The insights thereby gained are useful in order to predict future developments with regard to countries’ energy transitions. |
| Supervisor | Cherp, Aleh |
| Department | Environment Sciences and Policy MSc |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2018/borek_flora.pdf |
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