Multiple case study selection and design

The study proposes to investigate regions that are based in two different national settings, namely that of Italy and the UK. The choice of national settings derives from the fact that, on the one hand, both countries have been subject to similar pressures from European and international regulatory frameworks and have introduced targets for RE as well as financial and legislative incentives for the promotion of RE deployment. On the other hand, a key difference is that, while the Italian central government shares responsibility for energy policies with regional governments, in the UK, energy policy is a reserved function much of which is not devolved. Yet, devolution and local government reform have allowed for the emergence of a regional and local governance for RE in the UK (see for the English regions

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Smith (2007)). Additionally, recent research has shown that the UK is an interesting case to study. There are sufficient institutional differences across Wales, Scotland and the rest of the UK that open up fundamental questions in understanding the development and deployment of RE (for an example of bioenergy in the UK, see De Laurentis (2013) and for comparison between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, see Cowell et al. (2015)).

Furthermore, the international case of Italy has been so far under-studied in RE research. This has occurred despite the fact that Italy had the world’s largest national share of PV generation in 2012. The two countries also show differences in their institutional make up, as they are often considered examples of a liberal market economy (UK), and a variation of a coordinated market economy (Italy) (Hall and Soskice 2001). The analysis presented in chapter 4 of this thesis is specifically aimed at exploring and investigating the influence that the national (as well as the international and European) contexts exert on RE deployment processes.

The research adopts the regional scale as a focus of the analysis. Hence, the first task, in the identification of the likely cases to be studied, is to categorize and delineate the boundaries of the unit of analysis. As argued this is not without its challenges as the concept of the

‘region’ can be looked at from a variety of different perspectives, using a range of methodological approaches and this opens up a number of possibilities.

This work does not look at regions as social categories and, as argued, remains separated from the theoretical arguments about the construction of regions²⁵. The choice here, as discussed in chapter 1, is to accept that, as also stated by Paasi and Metzger (2016: 23), ‘many regions are actually territories deployed within the processes of governance, and are made socially meaningful entities in processes characterized by multifaceted power relations’.

Nevertheless, the delineation of regional boundaries will depend, to a large extent, on the research questions and the purpose of the analysis (cf. Macleod and Jones (2007); Harrison (2013). As suggested in chapter 1, I define regions as ‘territories smaller than their state

25 E.g. how regions emerge from the co-location of people in space, through historical processes which involve the construction of regional consciousness and identities out of diverse interests and agendas (Paasi, 1991; 1996, as quoted in Cumbers et al. (2003)). Paasi and Metzger (2016) argue in the geography literature, regions are seen as social constructs that are produced/reproduced by social actors in and through variegated social practices and discourses. The region, in this sense, they argue, is understood as the outcome of contestable

‘region-building’ or regionalization processes.

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possessing significant supra-local governance capacity and cohesiveness differentiating them from their state and other regions. Amongst the governance powers all possess, to varying degrees, are certain capacities to develop innovation support policies and organisations, though these are not their only or most important capacities or competencies’, following Cooke et al. (1997: 480). Within the regional boundaries, as defined above, there will be economic and social interactions between agents, spanning the public and private sectors that characterise and shape RE deployment. Adopting a RIS approach (Braczyk et al. 1998), these are represented by the regional institutional infrastructure (e.g. policy, governance and financial resources), the specific regional networks of innovators, local clusters and research institutions, and internal and external knowledge flows that relate to the RE sector in a specific region.

As the specific aim of the multiple case studies is to test theoretical propositions, the case study design needs to take into account primarily theoretical replication cases that predict contrasting results for predictable reasons (cf. Yin 2014). It follows that case studies need to be deliberately selected in order to offer contrasting situations (cf. Peck 2003). Given the need to capture the nature and extent of spatial heterogeneity in the dynamics of transformation of the energy sector towards sustainability (focussing in particular on RE deployment), regional case studies have been selected in a way that reflects their ability to allow distinguishing characteristics to emerge.

A scoping exercise (cf. Davis et al. 2009) was conducted to investigate regional differences in Italy in RE deployment and resource endowments to aid the selection of regions. The scoping exercise was conducted by synthetizing and analysing a number of secondary-data sources (in particular to highlight the main sources and types of evidence available and to inform the choice of regions). Italy is politically divided into 20 regions and into over 110 provinces, which have quite different size, population and regional per capita gross domestic product (GDP).

The country, except for the Po plain in the north, is largely mountainous, with mountain areas running from the Alps to the central Mediterranean Sea, presenting regional variations in solar radiation, orography, climate, population, area and economic conditions. This regional diversity, with the increased autonomy of action and governance capacity over energy, despite lacking control over economic framework conditions (such as subsidies and feed in tariffs), provides an interesting testbed for and illustration of the material dimensions of RE.

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Figure 3.1 and 3.2 illustrate the differences in terms of wind and solar resources and table 3.2 displays the regional distribution of RE.

Apulia, in the south, was selected for its pioneering role in RE deployment, as it became the leading region in wind and solar energy production in 2012. Tuscany, in the central area of Italy, was selected for its high concentration of universities and research clusters specialising in RE and the environment, and its tradition of industrial districts. Sardinia was chosen because of its insularity and by its ‘special statute²⁶’ condition. All three regions show similarities in wind strength and also differences and similarities in solar radiation, as figures 3.1 and 3.2 show.

In the UK, regions were selected in terms of their asymmetry of powers and ambition for RE deployment. Wales, a relatively small country of just under three million people, is located on the western periphery of the UK, and Scotland, with an estimated population of over five million, located in the north of the UK are, for the purpose of this study, both considered regions as they are situated between local and national levels with the capacity for authoritative decision making, together with a Welsh Government and an elected Assembly in Wales and a Scottish Executive and a Parliament in Scotland²⁷. Furthermore, a high proportion of RE sources potential, in the UK, is situated within the territory of Scotland and Wales. Figure 3.3 and 3.4 display solar and wind resources, respectively, and table 3.3 display the distribution of RE in Scotland, Wales and the UK.

The main distinguishing characteristics among all 5 regions are summarised as following:

26 Five out of the twenty Italian regions have been characterised by a `special statute' since the 1948 Constitution, and thus have significantly broader legislative, administrative, and financial autonomy than do ordinary regions. Among these, three are located in the North (Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Trentino-Alto Adige, and Valle d'Aosta) and two in the South (Sicily and Sardinia).

27 Northern Ireland was not selected as the region has always had responsibility for all energy matters (except nuclear power of which it has none (Ellis et al. 2013).

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- Regions that represent a varied degree of political and administrative autonomy: Sardinia a region with a ‘special statute’; Apulia and Tuscany, both regions with an ‘ordinary statute’; Wales and Scotland, both with a varied degree of devolved power;

- Regions that are playing a pioneering role in RE deployment: Scotland and Apulia have both experienced high success in terms of RE deployment; Apulia was the leading region in wind and solar energy production in 2012;

- regions that display different degrees of local institutional environments: Tuscany for instance with 3 major university clusters in Florence, Pisa and Siena, each with research centres specialised in RE and environment and its industrial districts’ tradition; Wales with the research capabilities of the Low Carbon Research Institute; and Scotland with its Marine energy innovation system²⁸;

28 The energy policy and institutional context of the Scottish marine energy innovation system is discussed in Winskel et al. (2006).

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- Regions that display a certain degree of variance in resource endowments: the regions selected differ in terms of geographical contexts and natural resource endowments.

Figure 3.1 Italian Wind Resources: Regional Differences

Source: This map is generated by the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy

(http://www.Irena.org/GlobalAtlas) using Open Street Map (openstreetmap.org) as base map

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Figure 3.2 Italian Solar Resources: Regional Differences

Source: Joint Research Centre/ European Commission http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_download/map_index.html

58 Figure 3.2 UK Solar Resources: Regional Differences

Source: Joint Research Centre/ European Commission http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_download/map_index.html

59 Figure 3.4 UK Wind Resources: Regional Differences

Source: This map is generated by the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy

(http://www.Irena.org/GlobalAtlas) using Open Street Map (openstreetmap.org) as base map

The next section details the data collection methods applied in the research. It is important to highlight that, as shown in table 3.4, the majority of face to face interviews were conducted in the three Italian regions. In fact, the main focus of the research has been on the Italian regions. This is because there has been little research on RE uptake in the case of Italy. Given the fact that the Italian government shares responsibility for energy policies with regional governments, the rapid uptake of RE deployment and the resulting regional variations in uptake all represented interesting characteristics to be assessed against the framework proposed. Yet, as suggested, it was also important to have a second national context considered to ensure that national characteristics (e.g. high subsidies for RE in Italy) were not the main drivers for the successful application of the framework. In other words, it was important to test the framework in another national context to ensure that it was transferable to other settings.

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Table 3.2 Regional Distribution of installed capacity (MW) & n. of sites (2014) (Italy)

Region n. n. % MW MW %

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Table 3.3 Regional Distribution of installed capacity (MW) & n. of sites (2014) (UK)

n. of sites N % MW MW %

England 515,947 78.08 14,766.2 59.26

East Midlands 60,310 9.13 1,499.1 6.02

East of England 71,534 10.83 2,675.0 10.73

North East 30,686 4.64 711.7 2.86

North West 56,702 8.58 1,913.9 7.68

London 16,971 2.57 331.2 1.33

South East 80,825 12.23 2,476.2 9.94

South West 92,768 14.04 1,964.2 7.88

West Midlands 47,915 7.25 882.9 3.54

Yorkshire and the Humber 58,236 8.81 2,312.2 9.28

Northern Ireland 12,695 1.92 807.2 3.24

Scotland 44,405 6.72 7,309.1 29.33

Wales 40,762 6.17 1,824.1 7.32

Other Sites* 46,969 7.11 213.0 0.85

UK Total 660,778 100.00 24,919.5 100.00

* Other sites are sites that have not been attributed to a region so that data related to individual companies are not disclosed.

Source: author’s elaboration from BEIS (2014b, 2014a)

In the UK, there has been a lot of attention and research activities on the variance of RE uptake and the effects of devolution. Therefore, it was never the intention to undertake the same scale of primary data collection in the UK, but rather to target the case study analysis at key institutions and individuals to confirm and provide updates to material from research already conducted.