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The iron and steel industry is a large emitter of CO2 globally. This is especially true for the iron and steel industries in China, Japan, and Korea due to their production volumes and the prevalence of carbon-based steel production. With few low-carbon and commercially available alternatives, the iron and steel industry is truly a hard-to-abate sector. Each of the countries of interest have committed to a net-zero future involving the mitigation of emissions from steel production. However, few studies have investigated the means by which to achieve decarbonization beyond the inclusion of price signalling policies (e.g., carbon tax or emission trading schemes). Here, we use E3ME-FTT:Steel to simulate technology diffusion in the ISI under several policy environments and we investigate the likely impacts on the wider economy. The results show that penalizing carbon intensive processes can incentivize a transition towards scrap recycling, but it is relatively unsuccessful in aiding the uptake of low carbon primary steelmaking. A combination of support and penalizing policies can achieve deep decarbonisation (>80% emission reduction compared with the baseline). Mitigating the emissions in the iron and steel industry can lead to economic benefits in terms of GDP (China: +0.8%; Japan: +1.3%; Korea: +0.1%), and employment (Japan: +0.7%; Korea: +0.3%) with China, where job losses in the coal sector would negate job gains elsewhere, as the exception.

A harmful impact of climate change and global warming has concerned various sectors of the international community. Numerous energy policies aiming at climate change mitigation have been implemented on a national and global scale. Renewable energy technologies (RETs) play a critical role in enhancing sustainable solutions that significantly limit greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Such innovative technologies can facilitate energy transition through providing, e.g., energy security, sustainable development, and effective usage of indigenous resources. However, the commercialization of RETs is extremely challenging. The barriers can be of a different nature, although this study focused on socioeconomic and regulatory issues. There is ample evidence that energy policies play a central role in supporting adoption of renewables. It is also claimed that RETs require the whole ecosystem to support their successful diffusion. In this study, we explored multifarious barriers for widespread RET diffusion in two European Union countries, Finland and Poland, indicating the most common barriers existing in the literature as well as analyzing major bottlenecks from the viewpoint of renewable energy companies’ executives. We also present statistics of the most commonly used RETs in these countries in order to express the diffusion issues more appropriately. The research shows that inflexible, ineffective, and excessive regulatory frameworks; limited financing options; as well as an insufficient level of societal awareness have been seen as the main bottlenecks for RET diffusion in both countries. The outcomes of this study provide useful insights for the researchers in the energy transition field as well as practical managerial and regulatory implications aimed at overcoming these challenges.

Understanding the residential adoption decision of battery energy storage systems (BESSs) is central to the implementation of successful intervention policies. However, when the residential solar photovoltaics (PV) becomes a widely accepted technology across a society, accurately modelling the behaviour shows a higher degree of complexity. In this vein, the uptake pathway of BESS and PV coupled with BESS (PV–BESS) would predictably exhibit similar attitudinal traits to that of PV consumption. This notion implies that the antecedent PV decision can be regarded as the past behaviour of the BESS adopter by creating attitudinal implications. The PV use status also yields a higher degree of heterogeneity through the emergence of four new household groups and the inherent imbalances in the involvement of the interwoven financial, technical, sociodemographic, and psychological predictors. This perspective employs the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA) to allegorise a decision-making model of BESS and PV–BESS adoption behaviour in a mature PV market (Australia). It argues that the particularised background factors will likely shape the individual’s attitudes and perceived norms for intention, and showcases affordability and the use of PV as the two control components that dictate the final decision.

The Swiss energy strategy aims at increasing electricity generation from solar power by 2050, to fulfil Switzerland’s commitments in the Paris Agreement. However, the market of single- and two-family houses is characterized by low return rates for excess power injected to the grid, and the installation of rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) is sensitive to financial incentives. We assess the drivers influencing the diffusion of rooftop solar PV systems until 2050, by employing an agent-based model. An agent is a single- or two-family house, and its decision to invest depends on the economic profitability of the investment, the agent’s income, environmental benefits (injunctive social norm), awareness and knowledge about the solar PV technology, and the impact of the social network (descriptive social norm). The model includes a synthetic population of agents, statistically equivalent to the true population. We also investigate the impact of different support policies, technology learning rates, electricity prices, and discount rates on the investment decision. We find that the concept of prosumer emerges, mainly via self-consumption strategies. The diffusion process of rooftop solar PV systems in single- and two-family houses gains momentum in the future. In the near-term, PV deployment is sensitive to the profitability of the investment, while after the year 2030, peer effects play an increasing role in the agents’ investment decisions.