Supporting renewable energy deployment: exploring routes from research into practice

该奖学金是以我的博士研究为基础的，并提供了一个平台，以建立一个独立的研究概况，并探索从研究到实践的途径。博士研究了导致可再生能源技术有效传播的机制，探索了它们的空间差异(这些技术可能如何以及在哪里部署)，审查了能源和物质性之间的关系。这项研究突出了可再生能源的几个物质层面，讨论和揭示了它们为什么以及以什么方式重要，以及为什么考虑它们是重要的。收集的经验证据表明，可再生能源的各种物质层面如何影响其在区域一级的空间分布和部署。从概念上讲，这项工作表明，强调可再生能源的物质层面提供了一个机会，解释特定的可再生能源是如何在某些领域形成的，而不是在其他领域形成的。在与可再生能源有关的创新和政策文献中，没有充分反映自然资源的物理特性、地理上的重现性及其象征价值和论述价值对创新进程和部署的影响。从分析上讲，它提供了一个经验框架，可以在这个框架内探讨实质性问题。这种启发式方法在解释意大利和英国的空间差异方面很有价值，可以用于进一步的比较实证研究。这项工作虽然有助于更好地理解能源转型的空间动态，但也为探索创新理论和区域研究的新联系以及从其他国家引进新的经验数据提供了机会。该研究金将进一步探讨从不同科学学科和理论角度进行的最新研究和当前研究之间的协同作用，这些研究可以增进我们对可再生能源部署和创新所带来的机会的了解，以及如何确定和处理这些机会。该奖学金将提供机会分享和扩展我的研究成果，邀请相关的跨学科学者参与。这将通过联合出版物、演讲以及学术交流和联网活动来实现。博士研究还强调，更高级别的目标的实现将在很大程度上取决于国家以下各级项目的成功和迅速实施，如地区及其所在城市。在这些层面上，关于可再生能源发电计划的投资和选址的决定至关重要。论文中确定的材料维度可以对区域/地方一级可再生能源部署的空间不均和变化以及在政策方面可以做些什么来纠正这种不均衡性提供有用的见解。所开发的新方法可用于为可再生能源政策思维和决策提供信息。该框架可帮助从业人员、开发人员和政策使用者评估资源，选择、开发和更有效地部署可再生能源技术(包括风能、海洋能源、水能、地热、太阳能和生物能源)，突出区域一级电力基础设施网络的重要性。该奖学金将提供机会与研究用户分享博士的见解及其实际影响，使研究成果可用和可用，并探索从研究到实践的途径。它将支持完善旨在改进未来政策干预设计的政策咨询和建议。

This fellowship is based upon my PhD research and provides the platform to build upon the approach developed, contributing to build an independent research profile and exploring routes from research into practice. The PhD investigated the mechanisms that lead to an effective diffusion of renewable energy technologies, exploring their spatial differential (how and where these technologies might be deployed) examining the relationship between energy and materiality. The research highlighted several material dimensions of renewable energy discussing and unpacking why, and in what ways, they matter, and why it is important to give them consideration. The empirical evidence collected shows how the various material dimensions of renewable energy affects its spatial distribution and deployment at the regional level. Conceptually, the work showed that stressing the material dimensions of renewable energy offers an opportunity to explain how particular renewable energy resources come to be fashioned in some areas and not in others. The influence on innovation processes and deployment that natural resources can exert, through their physical properties, their geographical recurrence and their symbolic and discursive values, has been insufficiently captured in the innovation and policy literature linked to renewable energy. Analytically, it provided an empirical framework within which the issues of materiality can be explored. This heuristic approach has been valuable in explaining spatial differences in Italy and the UK and can be adopted for further comparative empirical investigations. This work, while contributing towards a better understanding of the spatial dynamics of energy transition, has offered an opportunity to explore new connections to innovation theory and regional studies and as brought in new empirical data from other countries. The fellowship will explore further the synergies between recent and current research from different scientific disciplines and theoretical perspectives that can improve our understanding of - and how to identify and address- the opportunities that renewable energy deployment and innovation entails. The fellowship will provide the opportunity to share and expand upon my research findings, engaging relevant interdisciplinary academics. This will be achieved through joint publications, presentations and academic exchange and networking activities.The PhD research also stressed that the achievement of higher-level targets will depend significantly upon the successful and rapid implementation of projects at sub-national levels, such as regions and their cities. These are the levels at which decisions about investments in, and the siting of, renewable energy power schemes are crucial. The material dimensions identified in the thesis can provide useful insights into the spatial unevenness and variation of renewable energy deployment at the regional/local levels and what can be done, in policy terms, to redress this unevenness. The novel approach developed can be applied to inform renewable energy policy thinking and decision-making. The framework can help practitioners, developers and policy users to appraise resources and select, develop and more effectively deploy renewable energy technologies (including wind, marine, hydro, geothermal, solar and bioenergy), highlighting the criticality of the electricity infrastructure networks at the regional level. The fellowship will offer the opportunity to share the insights from the PhD and its practical implications with research users, making research findings usable and accessible and exploring routes from research into practice. It will support the refinement of policy advice and recommendations aimed at improving the design of future policy intervention.