inspire-gridd8.5 final synthesis.docx page 8-96 stakeholders’ concerns and needs the starting...

D8.5 Final Synthesis.docx -96

Project no. 608472

INSPIRE-Grid

IMPROVED AND ENHANCED STAKEHOLDERS PARTICIPATION IN REINFORCEMENT

OF ELECTRICITY GRID

Instrument: Collaborative project Thematic priority: ENERGY.2013.7.2.4 – Ensuring stakeholder support for future grid

infrastructures Start date of project: 01 October 2013

Duration: 40 months

D8.5

FINAL SYNTHESIS REPORT Revision: v1.0

Submission date: 2017-01-31

RSE (P01)


Dissemination Level

PU Public X

PP Restricted to other programme participants (including the Commission Services)

RE Restricted to a group specified by the consortium (including the Commission Services)

CO Confidential , only for members of the consortium (including the Commission Services)

Submitted

Author(s)

Name Organisation E-mail

S. Maran RSE [email protected]

E. Garofalo RSE [email protected]

V. Molinengo RTE [email protected]

A. Patt ETHZ [email protected]

A. Scolobig ETHZ [email protected]

L. Späth ETHZ [email protected]

E.Amodeo POLIEDRA [email protected]

A. Luè POLIEDRA [email protected]

S. Muratori POLIEDRA [email protected]

P. Schalbart ARMINES [email protected]

A. Ceglarz PIK [email protected]

A. Beneking PIK [email protected]

S. Ellenbeck PIK [email protected]

A. Battaglini PIK [email protected]

T. Schneider RGI [email protected]

J. Hildebrand IZES [email protected]

Abstract

The INSPIRE-Grid project is aimed at enhancing stakeholders’ participation in the development of future grid infrastructures. INSPIRE-Grid aims to increase stakeholders’ engagement in grid expansion projects, better manage conflicts, and speed up the permitting process. By way of an interdisciplinary approach, merging competences from social sciences and technical disciplines, methods to facilitate decision-making have been combined with engagement tools and tested with stakeholders from grid development project case studies.

The project has been structured with the following activities:

the analysis of the needs, concerns, wants and expectations of the stakeholders the individuation of the existing best practices for the stakeholders’ engagement the customisation of methodologies for assessing and comparing impacts and benefits a series of case studies with a double aim: to give elements to the methodological activities and to

allow a proper testing a synthesis of the project results and a series of recommendations about the stakeholders’

engagement.

The main results are a series of customised tools and methodologies that can be used to promote stakeholders’ engagement and recommendations to manage the consultation, to engage the stakeholders in the decision making process, and to improve support of development of future grid infrastructures.

Status of deliverable

Action By Date

Verified Michele de Nigris - RSE 31/01/2017

Approved (GC) Stefano Maran - RSE 31/01/2017


“Version history” that will become “Revision history” when the final “version” is converted into

.pdf format and submitted to the European Commission.

Date Version Author(s) Comments

18/11/2016 0.1 RSE 1st template

10/01/2017 0.2 RSE, ETHZ, POLIEDRA, ARMINES RTE, IZES, PIK

First draft

13/01/2017 0.3 RSE, ETHZ, POLIEDRA, ARMINES RTE, IZES, PIK

Second draft

17/01/2017 0.4 RSE, ETHZ, PIK Third draft

31/01/2017 0.5 RSE, RGI Insertion of the chapter 8

31/01/2017 1.0 RSE Final version


TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY............................................................................................................. 6

1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................ 16

2 STAKEHOLDERS’ CONCERNS AND NEEDS ................................................................ 19 2.1 Method ....................................................................................................................... 19 2.2 Stakeholder mapping: concerns and needs ................................................................ 21

2.3 The role of justice ....................................................................................................... 23 2.4 Development of criteria to cope with stakeholders concerns and needs .................... 24

3 STATE OF THE ART AND CRITICAL REVIEW ............................................................. 27 3.1 Reviewing the existing researches dealing with the public acceptance of impacting

infrastructures and more specifically of energy facilities .......................................... 27 3.2 Establishing a toolbox ................................................................................................ 32

4 METHODOLOGIES FOR THE ASSESSMENT AND COMPARISON OF GRID

INFRASTRUCTURES ......................................................................................................... 35 4.1 Methodologies for life cycle assessment .................................................................... 35

4.1.1 Review of existing methodologies ................................................................. 36 4.1.2 Estimation of the effects: development of methodologies for life cycle

assessment ...................................................................................................... 36

4.1.3 Application of LCA to the Cergy-Persan case study ..................................... 38

4.2 Methodologies to support the decision making process ............................................ 39 4.2.1 Tiering approach ............................................................................................ 39

4.2.2 Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) ...................................................................... 40 4.2.3 Criteria and indicators .................................................................................... 44 4.2.4 MCA and Environmental compensation ........................................................ 45

4.3 Methodologies and tools for spatial representations – Web GIS ............................... 46 4.3.1 Testing of the tool .......................................................................................... 50

5 PROCESSES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT .................................................................... 52 5.1 Development of a theoretical framework ................................................................... 53 5.2 Stakeholder interaction ............................................................................................... 57

5.3 Improving the framework .......................................................................................... 60

5.4 Guidelines on the design of the communication and participation processes ............ 62

6 CASE STUDIES ................................................................................................................... 69 6.1 Methodology development for the case studies. ........................................................ 69

6.2 Selection of case studies. ............................................................................................ 69 6.3 Implementation of methodologies in case studies. .................................................... 72

7 SYNTHESIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ...................................................................... 74 7.1 Development of locally specific communication and participation plans ................. 74 7.2 Validation of the guidelines ....................................................................................... 76

7.2.1 Methods and hypotheses to be tested ............................................................. 76 7.2.2 Designs of the validation workshops ............................................................. 77

7.2.3 Results of the validation workshops ............................................................... 80


7.3 Synthesis and recommendations ................................................................................ 82 7.3.1 Challenge 1: Addressing Stakeholder expectations and the importance of

trust ................................................................................................................. 82

7.3.2 Challenge 2: Using participatory decision-making methods ......................... 83 7.3.3 Challenge 3: Untapping potentials of stakeholder participation .................... 84

8 MAIN EVENTS AND DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES ................................................... 86 1.1 The website ................................................................................................................ 86 1.2 Project workshops ...................................................................................................... 87

1.2.1 General assemblies of the project ................................................................... 88 1.2.2 Target group specific events .......................................................................... 88 1.2.3 Public events .................................................................................................. 89

1.3 Synthesis documents .................................................................................................. 90 1.3.1 Flyer ............................................................................................................... 90 1.3.2 Summary for policymakers ............................................................................ 90 1.3.3 Brochure ......................................................................................................... 91

1.3.4 Technical Synthesis ........................................................................................ 92

9 INSPIRE-GRID REPORTS AND PUBLICATIONS .......................................................... 93 9.1 Deliverable list ........................................................................................................... 94

10 REFERENCES...................................................................................................................... 95

Please note that deliverables are referenced as Dn.m, according to an internal numbering of the

project; the list of all deliverables is available at the end of this report (section 9.1). All the

deliverables can be downloaded from the project website:

http://www.inspire-grid.eu/index.php/inspire-grid-publications/



EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The European Union (EU) is tackling the combined challenge of combatting climate change and

securing Europe energy supply through an ambitious set of policies to accelerate the transition

towards a low carbon society. With the adoption of its 20-20-20 targets and the objective of a

largely decarbonized power sector by 2050, the European Union has set the stage for a significant

increase in the use of renewable energies. In October 2014, EU leaders agreed on the 2030 policy

framework for climate and energy, aiming to make the European Union's economy and energy

system more competitive, secure and sustainable. Specifically it sets a domestic 2030 greenhouse

gas reduction target of at least 40% compared to 1990 and a binding objective of increasing the

share of renewable energy to at least 27% of the EU's energy consumption by 2030.

In recent years, the increasing number of technical scenarios for electricity generation and

consumption raised the issue of grid expansion as a key point for the large-scale integration of

renewables. The objective of making low-carbon technologies affordable and competitive is the

core idea behind the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan). The expansion has

rapidly emerged to the very top of the de-carbonization agenda, as a stand-or-fall issue: if it fails, a

very far-reaching de-carbonization based on renewables will be very difficult.

Today, grid expansion in Europe is a very difficult and time-consuming matter, much due to

obstacles encountered during the authorization phase and strong public opposition: often, electricity

transmission projects take 5-10 years to pass the permission processes and proceed to the

construction phase. This situation is not compatible with the aim of massively and rapidly

increasing the share of renewables, but whereas the technical understanding of electricity grids is

very good, the understanding of the social processes supporting or hindering the reshaping of the

transmission system is very limited.

The present project thus addresses exactly these shortcomings

by investigating the grid expansion problems from a social

scientific perspective. INSPIRE-Grid, which stands for

“Improved and eNhanced Stakeholder Participation In the

Reinforcement of the Electricity Grid”, aims to increase

stakeholders’ engagement in grid expansion projects, to better

manage arisen conflicts, and to speed up the permitting

process.

With ten partners from six different countries, the INSPIRE-Grid consortium includes the most

relevant institutions and competences for the problem at hand. It comprises both Academia

(Research Centres and Universities) and TSOs; moreover, NGOs and one (Norwegian) national

agency are involved in the role of observers. Regarding competences and qualifications,

specializations in psychology and social sciences, together with engineering and environmental

sciences are present among partners.


By way of an interdisciplinary approach, INSPIRE-Grid developed stakeholder-led processes and

design an expert-led European good practice guide. Methods to facilitate decision-making have

been newly combined with engagement tools and tested with stakeholders from existing or

concluded grid development project case studies.

Main objectives of the project are:

1. the analysis of the needs, concerns, wants and expectations of the stakeholders and general public

2. the development or adaptation of methodologies to assess and compare impacts and benefits

3. the development of suitable processes for an effective communication and real participation of

the stakeholders and general public

4. a series of recommendations about the stakeholders and general public engagement

The results developed during the project were tested on series of case studies related to real grid

development projects.

The overarching goal of the project is to develop a methodology to manage the consultation in order

to engage the stakeholders in the decision making process and to improve support of development

of future grid infrastructure.

Main results

We ground the proposed research in a theoretical framework displaying the factors that influence

public acceptance or opposition to infrastructure projects. In this framework, there are two primary

sets of factors underlying support or opposition: the needs, wants, concerns, and expectations of

(local) stakeholders on the one hand; the costs, benefits, risks, and implications of the specific

infrastructure project on the other. But other factors can play an influential role as well: the

processes through which people learn about, discuss, and ultimately participate in deciding about

the proposed project can mediate their perceptions of their own wants and needs, the attributes of

the infrastructure, and the fit between the two; the “soft factors”, like trust and interpersonal justice,

which are acknowledged as important factors in determining the success or the failure of the

engagement process. The activities of the project were structured in order to address these issues,

test the conclusion by means of real case studies, and develop a unified framework.


Stakeholders’ concerns and needs

The starting point was the analysis of concerns and needs of stakeholders involved in the context of

electricity grid extension.

In this regard, we developed a stakeholder map based on a comprehensive literature review on

studies about acceptance of renewable energies as well as on grid infrastructures.

Additionally, we collected data by applying several qualitative guideline-interviews with members

of different stakeholder groups. First of all, the stakeholder analysis serves to identify and

differentiate the stakeholders involved. Especially with regard to the ‘broad public’, the stakeholder

analysis allows to draw a differentiated picture of the individuals and groups. Another objective is

to widen the focus, which usually lies only upon grid operators and the broad public. Thus, the

presented stakeholder analysis takes into account a wide range of affected stakeholders, such as

planning, permitting and implementing authorities, energy providers and producers, construction

companies, nature conservationists, tourism industry, land owners, farmers and forest owners as

well as hunters. In a joint stakeholder map, we show the similarities and differences between

stakeholders’ concerns and needs regarding grid expansion measures. The joint stakeholder map

offers indications concerning possible sources of conflict as well as possible entry points for

providing tailored solutions.

State of the art and critical review

A second starting point consisted in a review of the current processes for the involvement of

different stakeholders during planning processes for new power lines projects. These stakeholders

include NGOs, project proponents, and potentially affected citizens. The activity focused on:

i. The reasons for opposition against power lines and other renewable energy-related

infrastructure projects;

ii. Methods of stakeholder participation, including their potentials and limits;


iii. Participatory ‘tools’ that may be used in power lines planning processes;

iv. Evaluation criteria for participatory processes, with a focus on the suitable criteria for power

lines planning.

A way to improve acceptance for power lines is to integrate the affected stakeholders in the

planning process. From other renewable energy-related fields like wind power and biogas plants,

fairness and transparency in the planning are the two main recurrent factors of procedural justice

mentioned as a guarantee of successful stakeholder engagement. Distributional justice is also a

factor of success, mainly in terms of fair distribution of perceived costs and benefits related to the

concerned infrastructure. Finally, examples from non-energy related fields like natural hazard

management show several benefits and barriers of participation. On one hand, the main benefits are

the inclusion of public needs in the decision making process, increased awareness and knowledge of

the stakeholders, better credibility and legitimacy of the projects and, as a result of the previous

ones, improved policy effectiveness. On the other hand, neglecting power dynamics and failing to

integrate stakeholders’ perspectives and heterogeneity may lead to bad outcomes of the processes.

Indeed, participation may also increase conflicts, if it is not carried out properly.

To include stakeholders in planning processes for power lines, many tools are available and a

selection of the most appropriate ones is necessary. We selected some key tools and described their

characteristics. Moreover we relied on the experiences of three transmission system operators

(TSO)- Rte in France, Statnett in Norway and Swissgrid in Switzerland - to identify strengths and

weaknesses of different stakeholders’ involvement tools.

Based on the criteria identified in existing literature, we performed an evaluation of current

planning processes for power lines in France and Norway. The results reveal that, although current

processes fulfil already several criteria for good participation, they have two main shortcomings:

(1) the discussion of needs for power lines is not always carried out with the relevant

stakeholders;

(2) explicit and structured participatory decision-making mechanisms to manage inputs from

stakeholders are often inexistent.

Although TSOs may work to improve stakeholder engagement on a voluntary basis, changes should

happen also at the legal level. For instance, methods and tools which allow to effectively consider

stakeholders preferences and perspectives (including, for example, stakeholder mapping, analysis of

their preferences, interests, wants and needs) have to be integrated in the decision making process,

in the same way that environmental impacts assessment are usually required to get a building permit

for power lines.

Assessment and comparison of grid infrastructures

After framing the problem, collecting the basic data and identifying the research gaps in the current

processes, the project dealt with the problem of developing methodologies for the assessment and

comparison of grid infrastructures. Specifically, attention was focused on methodologies that could

contribute to the improvement of stakeholders’ engagement.

Methodologies for the life cycle assessment

A grid project results in various environmental impacts. In addition to local environmental impacts

nearby the power line, a grid project also indirectly affects the environment. All along its life cycle


(material production, construction, maintenance, dismantling, waste treatment), environmental

impacts can occur. A grid project will also reduce congestion in the transmission network, which

can result in a change in electricity production and, consequently, in changes in its environmental

impacts.

A methodology based on life cycle assessment (LCA) was developed to evaluate the indirect

environmental impacts of a grid project, by modelling the consequences of the decision to carry

out the project (consequential LCA). We defined seven indicator related to LCA: climate change;

primary energy; abiotic (mineral) resource depletion; water depletion; radioactive waste production;

damage to human health; damage to ecosystems.

We applied this methodology on the Cergy-Persan project. Results showed that for all impact

categories except abiotic resource depletion, the impacts of the project are mainly due to its indirect

effect on electricity production. For these categories, the environmental impacts of the project can

vary a lot depending on the scenario considered for the evolution of the power system. Impacts due

to building, maintenance and dismantling of the overhead line infrastructure are almost negligible

for these categories, while it is the main source of abiotic resource depletion, mainly due to the use

of galvanic steel. We consider this conclusion to be transferable to any project of high voltage

overhead line (transmission network).

Methodologies to support the decision making process,

Within INSPIRE-Grid project we propose a comprehensive approach, following the whole

decision-making process through its stages (see D4.3): Strategy (necessary and often in some way

disregarded), Determination of need, Project preparation and Spatial planning and Permitting.

In particular, we recommend the use of a tiering approach, including environmental considerations

in the assessments done at all the different stages in the overall process. Tiering is the process by

which ‘higher-tier’ or strategic decisions influence and set the context for other, subsequent ‘lower-

tier’ or more detailed decisions. There are many important advantages by preparing a sequence of

linked environmental assessments at different decision-making levels, primarily because process

owners can give the appropriate amount of attention and detail at the right time, in line with the

project maturity level.


Participation is essential at all stages, although the roles of different stakeholders will be

different at different levels: for instance, supranational institutions will have a more relevant role

at the Strategy stage and a minor one for the Spatial planning, while the opposite will be true for

citizens.

The use of a formalized Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) method can support the decision maker

to select the most suitable alternative in integrated and participated way. This has been tested in

INSPIRE-Grid by means of three validation workshops and two case studies, verifying that:

A proper use of MCA can foster stakeholder participation.

MCA can be used to properly manage conflicts and support the choice of a compromise

alternative, possibly reducing times and costs necessary to reach a satisfactory decision.

MCA may and should allow participants to structure the debate and facilitate participation and

negotiation, especially by helping to establish a climate of confidence and by providing a common

understanding of the problem.

We finally gave suggestions about environmental compensation, based on the consideration that

aim of the compensation is to rebalance the residual negative impact of a project, in particular the

environmental damages that could not be avoided or mitigated.

Implementation of the web-GIS tool

We developed and implemented a prototype of a participative Web GIS (http://utopia.rse-web.it)

within the INSPIRE-Grid project, focusing on the functionalities which could support the

involvement of the population in the decision-making process, enhance their participation,

enable them to interact with the decision makers, and to express their own opinion about possible

alternative routes or solutions.

Particularly, three functionalities that are not available in standard Web GIS applications, have been

implemented:

1. Improvement of standard exploration functionalities

2. A tool for sending comments and documentation related to a specific location

http://utopia.rse-web.it/


3. Elicitation of people preferences about the landmarks to be protected and computation of

an interference indicator, measuring how much the different options could interfere with

the people preferred points.

These extensions could be used in different ways to involve people during a decisional process: as

an information tool, as a consultation tool and to foster a more active involvement of people who

want to explicit their preferences. In this respect, the interference indicator can be used as an input

for a Multi Criteria Analysis.

We presented and discussed the tool in five workshops held in four different countries, with a quite

varied audience. The participants of the workshops appreciated the Web-GIS for its functionality of

capturing geographic information data in an easy and fast way. Additionally, workshops’

participants discussed in detail and raised some doubts on its use as an effective tool to elicit people

preferences and to implement active participation. For this reason, its usefulness is worth of further

investigations and some experience in real case studies would be necessary, with the collaboration

not only of the proponents but of the permitting authority as well. In the present project, we could

not thoroughly consider this aspect because of the inconsistency of the duration of the spatial

planning and permitting phases with the project duration.

Processes for public engagement

In order to address the reasons for public opposition to the development of new electric

infrastructures, we carried out an activity to analyse and enhance the stakeholder engagement and

participation process. To achieve this objective we identified four phases:

1. Development of a theoretical framework to improve the understanding of actors involved in

participation and engagement processes.

2. Stakeholder interaction.

3. Improvement of the theoretical framework

4. Guidelines on the design of the communication and participation processes

In the first phase we designed a theoretical framework to assist the understanding of stakeholder

attitudes regarding new electric power system infrastructure development. This framework

distinguishes two primary categories – project characteristics and stakeholder characteristics – each


of which contains a number of factors and a third, cross-cutting, category that relates to the

temporal characteristics of the project.

In the second phase, we developed a set of preliminary guidelines for engaging stakeholders in

transmission development projects. We propose the following five overarching principles for

stakeholders’ involvement:

Consistency

Transparency

Timeliness

Proportionality

Inclusiveness

and ten general steps helping to organize an engagement process in a successful way.

In the third phase, we produced a handbook of guidelines on the design of the communication and

participation processes in order to increase public acceptance of transmission grid projects. It

focuses mostly on the role of the facilitator of the engagement process, namely the project owner. It

does not aim to present the engagement process as successful, but rather as trustworthy. This

deliverable is based on insights gathered from the whole INSPIRE-Grid project.

The last phase produced an improved theoretical framework, which concentrates directly on the soft

factors influencing the public acceptance of the grid extension. It helps to better explain the

relation between values (which were the starting point of INSPIRE-Grid theoretical considerations)

and attitudes that stakeholders present towards transmission lines. It is a result of an extensive

literature review from other disciplines, as well as the outcome of the data gathered during the


fieldworks in three INSPIRE-Grid case studies (chapter 6). This theoretical framework does not

replace the conceptual work developed in the first phase but is complementary to it.

Synthesis and recommendations

The purpose of this final activity was to use methodologies and translate insights gained during the

INSPIRE-Grid project into plans for improved and enhanced stakeholder communication and

engagement in the reinforcement of electricity grid. Starting with the assumption that improving

and enhancing stakeholder participation in planning processes is a way to reduce stakeholder

opposition, we tested stakeholder engagement two methods: Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) and

Web-based Geographic Information Systems (Web GIS). Starting from the findings of the case

studies, we tested these stakeholder engagement methods in more interactive settings and observed

their potential effects on planning processes for power lines.

The results of the validation workshops show that current planning-processes can be improved

through the use of additional stakeholder engagement methods. MCA showed the ability to

create a reduced set of alternative power line paths by using stakeholder preferences in a ranking of

effects and to generate acceptance for the outcome when stakeholders agree on a ranking. However,

MCA did not necessarily foster systematic stakeholder acceptance of the outcomes. The other

method tested, Web GIS, showed to be useful for stakeholders to communicate spatially-related

points of view with the process owners. However the method showed some limitations regarding

the representativeness of the affected population in this kind of information exchanges.

Nevertheless, our results suggest that using tools like MCA and Web GIS potentially increase

perceived justice by the stakeholders. However, the results related to justice are not robust enough

due to a relatively low amount of participants we had at one validation workshop. Therefore more

research is needed to robustly confirm this link between new methods and perceived justice.

While the theoretical guidelines list several potential stakeholder participation tools and the context

of their use in planning processes, the results on a specific workshop session on the validation of the

locally specific plans (see D5.2 and D7.1) suggest that although stakeholder engagement forms may

remain at a relative low level (information or consultation), there is a large potential to increase

their quality through a better implementation of existing engagement methods. Additionally,

from a process perspective, the results suggest that planning processes would not highly benefit of

higher forms of participation like co-decision as there is room for improvement at lower levels of

participation, information and consultation, and therefore an emphasis should be put on the quality

of these engagements. Therefore, the empirical validation of the locally specific plans suggests that

participative decision-making methods like MCA should be applied through a rationale of higher

quality involvement instead higher levels of empowerment.

The issue of enhancing stakeholder participation can be tackled from many perspectives, through

many levels and by many actors. Therefore, basing on a multidisciplinary approach we carried out

in the INSPIRE-Grid project, we synthesize the main findings of the projects through three main

challenges related to power line planning to be addressed:

1. Addressing Stakeholder expectations and the importance of trust

2. Using participatory decision-making methods and

3. Untapping the potentials of stakeholder participation.

Each of these challenges entails a description of the problem, recommendations on how to tackle it

and their substantiation through the findings of the project. We address these findings and


recommendations mainly to process owners of grid extension projects, usually Transmission Grid

Operators (TSO) or regulators and planning authorities. Nevertheless, these results are also highly

relevant for policy-makers and civil-society actors involved in grid extension projects.


1 INTRODUCTION

While many details of the future European power system remain highly disputed at national and

European levels, one parameter seems to be very clear to a vast majority of policy-makers: the

modernisation of the current electricity infrastructure is indispensable for the further integration of

the European internal energy market as well as the integration of increased shares of renewables.

However, grid expansion in Europe is a very difficult and time-consuming matter, much due to

obstacles encountered during the authorization phase and strong public opposition: often, electricity

transmission projects take 5-10 years to pass the permission processes and proceed to the

construction phase. The latest ACER monitoring report on PCIs published in July 2016 showed

once again: many projects to further develop electricity grids are delayed – mostly due to challenges

related to the permitting procedure. This situation is not compatible with the aim of massively and

rapidly increasing the share of renewables, but whereas the technical understanding of electricity

grids is very good, the understanding of the social processes supporting or hindering the reshaping

of the transmission system is very limited.

In this regard, the central question is:

What can be done to better integrate the views, concerns and beliefs of stakeholders into

the planning and permitting procedure?

The project INSPIRE-Grid, launched under the EU 7th

Framework Program, aims to increase

stakeholder engagement in grid expansion projects, better manage conflicts, and speed up the

permitting process. With ten partners from six different countries, the INSPIRE-Grid consortium

includes the most relevant institutions and competences for the problem at hand. It comprises both

Academia (Research Centres and Universities) and TSOs; moreover, NGOs and one (Norwegian)

national agency are involved in the role of observers. Regarding competences and qualifications,

specializations in psychology and social sciences, together with engineering and environmental

sciences are present among partners.

Figure 1: The INSPIRE-Grid Consortium

Through an interdisciplinary approach, INSPIRE-Grid developed stakeholder-led processes and

designed an expert-led European good practice guide. Methods to facilitate decision-making have


been newly combined with engagement tools and tested with stakeholders from existing or

concluded grid development project case studies.

Starting from an analysis of the factors that influence public acceptance or opposition to

infrastructure projects, the project is structured in five main research activities (organised in

workpackages, see Figure 2 below) dedicated to specific objectives:

WP2: to analyse stakeholder wants, needs, concerns, and expectations and produce a

stakeholder map;

WP3: to analyse and review past experiences and single out best practices and criteria for

good participation practices;

WP4: to develop and customise methodologies to assess and quantify benefits and impacts

on different temporal and spatial scales;

WP5: to analyse and enhance the processes of stakeholders engagement and participation (in

the frame of the regulatory context);

WP6: to test hypothesis from the previous methodological activities to real cases;

WP7: to validate engagement processes, to produce a synthesis of the project results and a

proposal for improvement.

These research workpackages are strictly interconnected and are framed into the coordination and

dissemination workpackages, resulting in the structure reported in the following figure.

Figure 2 - Structure of the INSPIRE-Grid project

Main objectives of the project are:

1. the analysis of the needs, concerns, wants and expectations of the stakeholders and general public

2. the development or adaptation of methodologies to assess and compare impacts and benefits

3. the development of suitable processes for an effective communication and real participation of

the stakeholders and general public


4. a series of recommendations for policy makers, the decision makers, and stakeholders

The overarching goal of the project is to suggest methodologies to interact with stakeholder more

effectively, in order to engage them in the decision making process and to improve support of

development of future grid infrastructure.


2 STAKEHOLDERS’ CONCERNS AND NEEDS

As a consequence of the EU’s commitment to enhance the use of renewable energy sources, the

extension of the electricity grid became a principal issue within European energy politics. However,

the extension of the grid has turned to be a difficult task to undertake, as the construction of new

power lines frequently encounters public resistance. It is therefore important to foster a

comprehensive understanding of the significant acceptance factors for electricity infrastructure

projects. Several studies have shown that stakeholders’ concerns and needs with regard to electricity

infrastructure measures are highly relevant acceptance factors.

In the context of grid extension, ‘stakeholders’ are understood as “groups of organisations and

individuals with vested interests or functions in power grid development projects” (Roland Berger

Strategy Consultants, 2014, p. 12). As a matter of course, the stakeholders affected by grid

extension are not a homogeneous group. On the contrary, stakeholder constellations may be very

different depending on the particular level (local, national etc.). Furthermore, the relevant

stakeholders as well as their concerns and needs frequently change throughout the planning and

construction process of new power lines. Thus, a differentiated stakeholder analysis is essential in

order to identify possible conflicts, to monitor developments and changes, and to support

developing tailored solutions.

Taking into consideration that the determination of relevant stakeholders and associated acceptance

criteria for grid extension always depend on the specific context, the present stakeholder analysis

aims to promote an understanding of the complexity that the identification of acceptance factors

brings along. To reveal the encountered conflicts deriving from the differing stakeholders’ concerns

and needs as well as from communication and participation processes is of further interest within

the stakeholder analysis. Thus, this stakeholder analysis is characterised by a systemic approach,

including all stakeholders or groups of stakeholders affected by grid extension measures,

independently from their ‘stake’, interest, power (resources) or influence.

After having identified the different stakeholders groups connected to issues of grid extension, their

respective concerns and needs as highly relevant acceptance factors are considered in a next step. In

this context, it is important to describe and understand the variety of concerns and needs as well as

possible corresponding conflicts as a first step heading for conflict prevention and a participative

solution process.

Concerns are defined as doubts, objections or fears regarding technical, socio-economic,

health, political or social aspects of the grid expansion measures: A resident might for

example apprehend that a high-voltage power line has due to its EMF negative health

impacts and will therefore plead in favor of ground cables. Another stakeholder such as a

representative of the TSO in charge might however express the concern that the construction

and maintenance of ground cables are much more cost-intensive than overhead lines.

Needs, which often can be derived from concerns, comprise desires, interests as well as

necessities whose satisfaction is perceived to be indispensable: When a stakeholder utters

the concern that the planning process of HVTLs is not transparent and fair, his need for a

transparent und fair planning process can be derived. There is however not always a direct

link between concerns and needs. Some needs, such as for example the transition of the

energy system, are not based in a concern regarding the grid expansion.

2.1 Method

The starting point for this activity was the results of field research conducted in former and ongoing

studies investigating the acceptance of electricity infrastructure measures in Germany (cf.

Schweizer-Ries, 2008; Schweizer-Ries 2011; Zoellner & Rau, 2010). Within the scope of these


studies various qualitative interviews with different stakeholders such as residents, nature

conservationists, representatives of TSOs, civil initiatives, and local authorities etc. were carried

out. Furthermore, the evaluation of a standardised questionnaire inquiring into the residents’

acceptance of grid expansion measures was concluded in the stakeholder analysis1.

To complement the findings mentioned above, a comprehensive literature review regarding studies

on acceptance of renewable energies as well as on grid infrastructures was conducted. Additionally,

data was collected by applying several qualitative guided interviews with members of different

stakeholder groups in Germany. On the whole, twelve interviews were conducted:

interviews with experts (4): overall view on grid situation;

interviews with stakeholders: TSO (2), local initiative (2), local authority (2), federal grid

agency (1), nature conservation group (1).

Although empirical data have been collected from research projects conducted in Germany, the

analyses of stakeholder groups and their respective concerns and needs seem nevertheless to be

transferrable to other European countries. For instance, Cotton & Devine-Wright (2012) present

views of the public in UK regarding the impacts of HVTLs. The results of this case study on

perceived impacts actually show similar concerns and needs as there are in other countries (Table

1).

Table 1: Relevant topics to grid extension in UK (Cotton & Devine-Wright, 2012)

Coded qualitative data segments by instance of occurrence. (N=38)

Theme Coded

segments2

Health impacts and risks 55

Community protest and the NIMBY concept 47

NG consultation practices 42

Visual impact, aesthetics and sense of place 40

Cost, profit and infrastructure expenditure 35

Public involvement, spatial and procedural fairness, and local decision-making

control

29

Effects on wildlife and the local environment 28

Undergrounding and undersea options 27

Alternative technologies (decentralised/microgeneration) 23

Trust in stakeholder actors (NG, government, media, protest organisations) 19

Conceptions of the NG organization 18

1 This questionnaire was designed within the ongoing research project “Accompanying and Acceptance Research on

Current Issues of the Grid Extension in Germany – Scientific Monitoring of the Planning Practice” („Begleit- und

Akzeptanzforschung zu aktuellen Fragen des Stromnetzausbaus in Deutschland – Wissenschaftliche Begleitung der

Planungspraxis“), project number: 03ET2043, coordination: IZES gGmbH, Social-Scientific Energy Research Group,

term of the project: 03/01/2012 – 08/31/2015.

2 Coded segments are pieces of text as a result of a qualitative analysis; more coded segments indicate a topic of higher

priority


Following the analyses described above, two interdisciplinary workshops were held in order to

present the preliminary results and discuss them together with an interdisciplinary community. The

workshops have been hold on 29th

of October 2014 in Berlin (joint Workshop with RGI) and on 5th

and 6th

of November 2014 in Amsterdam, respectively. On the whole, the results were seen by the

participants as reasonable and helpful. It became evident that some impacts have a general meaning,

but the exact meaning (and connected solution) differs from case to case or from region to region.

Other points of discussion were:

Interdependencies of impacts: e.g. Property values as a consequence of landscape issues or

risk perception (EMF)

Stakeholder groups can not only be described by their affectedness or local role, but also by

their individual dispositions; socio-demographic parameters

The challenge of automatizing stakeholder analyses and keep them updated- referring to

changing concerns/ needs and stakeholder constellations

Understanding of complexity of groups and interests, concerns and needs

Heterogeneity of the stakeholder groups as well as regional differences and timeline

influences

Some important aspects in public responses were identified which might vary between countries or

regions:

organization of opposition (is there a national coalition of power line objection? is it directed

at the national grid operator or against power lines? is its main focus the impact of power

lines on health or on landscape impacts (or other…?);

voiced opinions/strategic responses;

differences in the perceived impact of a power line;

content of media reports on the topic;

the importance of local context (social/cultural background and dynamics over time);

lack of trust and perceived injustice.

The results of these activities were analyzed and used to focus on three different topics, described in

the following.

2.2 Stakeholder mapping: concerns and needs

In a first step the stakeholder analysis serves to identify and differentiate the stakeholders involved.

Especially with regard to the stakeholder ‘broad public’, the stakeholder analysis allows to draw a

differentiated picture of the individuals and groups. Another objective is to widen the focus, which

usually lies only upon grid operators and the broad public. Thus, the presented stakeholder analysis

takes into account a wide range of affected stakeholders, such as planning, permitting and

implementing authorities, energy providers and producers, construction companies, nature

conservationists, tourism industry, land owners, farmers and forest owners as well as hunters. The

similarities and differences between stakeholders’ concerns and needs regarding grid expansion

measures were then represented in a joint stakeholder map. The joint stakeholder map offers

indications concerning possible sources of conflict as well as possible entry points for providing

tailored solutions.

Stakeholder mapping is an efficient method to combine a stakeholder analysis with different topics.

There are various possibilities to depict stakeholders and their influence, power, resources,

interrelationships or the importance of certain aspects. Besides the possibility of combination of

certain topics with stakeholders, it is essential to use an appropriate method to collect the needed

data. For aspects that are easily to assess and can be inquired in a formal way, a short questionnaire


could be used. For other, more critical aspects, like perceived power, influence or available

resources (e.g. knowledge, time and money), an interview might be more appropriate to elicit

deeper knowledge and to create a more trustable environment.

Figure 3: Joint stakeholder map3

In Figure 3, all encountered concerns and needs from the presented stakeholder analysis are listed

and allocated to each stakeholder group. There are concerns and needs that diverge significantly in

detail and between stakeholders as well as between regions: in one area the (socio-) economic

concerns might be more important than ecology concerns, in another region it might be the other

way around.

Concerns and their corresponding needs can be important for various stakeholders but are seldom

completely relevant for all stakeholders. Socio-economic concerns and needs contain individualistic

as well as regional perspectives on economy. The group that refers to concerns and needs regarding

the human well-being appears to be of particular importance because these concerns are generally

important for every person. Further, there are concerns and needs that can be categorised under

3 For the consultation of the map, see D2.1 and the project website (http://www.inspire-grid.eu/index.php/results/)

where a navigable version is available.

http://www.inspire-grid.eu/index.php/results/


politics and technology. Crucial for the organisation of a successful planning process are the

concerns and needs that deal with social aspects and the perceived quality of the planning

procedure: the exclusion and non-transparency of the planning and decision-making process, an

untrustworthy TSO and authorities as well as missing traceability of necessity of grid expansion

seem to be the most important aspects to consider. These concerns address certain aspects of

procedural justice which turns out to be of particular importance and should be considered as a

relevant acceptance factor.

2.3 The role of justice

For a better understanding of the major concerns and needs and for providing a theoretical

framework, we analysed the relations between concerns and needs and the three dimensions of

justice interpersonal, distributional and procedural justice. Since the previous analysis showed that

concerns and needs may differ significantly among stakeholders, to carry out this analysis we

considered only those key elements that are shared by the majority of stakeholders.

Figure 4: Key Needs Related to Distributive, Interpersonal and Procedural Justice

A detailed look shows that, in terms of their psychological effects, all concerns and needs can be

described referring to the three dimensions of justice. Concerns and needs regarding the planning

and decision-making process relate to the concept of procedural justice. The wish for a respectful

interaction refers to the interpersonal justice and the urge for fair distribution of costs (impacts) and

benefits belongs to the level of distributional justice. The mentioned dimensions of justice are

however interlinked, which implicates that all three have to be equally considered in order to reach

acceptable solutions.

As shown in the previous figure many of the key concerns and needs can be found at the process

level. Among the expressed needs referring to the process level, there are the early public

Key Needs related to Distributive, Interpersonal and Procedural Justice

ProceduralJustice

Distributive Justice

Interpersonal Justice

Quality of information:

• Transparency: Early, regular, free, easily

accessible and comprehensive information on

controversial issues of grid extension, e.g.

- Impacts on health and well-being

- Environmental impact

- Technical alternatives

- ground cable, overhead line,

smart grid, AC/DC

- costs

- pilot projects

- scientific research

Quality of the planning process

- Transparent planning procedures

- Participation procedures

- (Early) Involvement

- Information

- Consultation

- Cooperation

- Opportunities and limits of participation

Fair distribution of costs

- Changes in landscape

- Health impacts

- Property value- Development of trust between all stakeholders

- Constructive communication processesFair distribution of benefits

- Financial participation

- Transmission of own produced electricity


involvement through information, consultation or cooperation, the transparency of the planning

process with regard to planning procedures and participation possibilities as well as the

transparency of information (cf. also D3.2 “Best practices of participatory processes”). The latter

aspect implicates early, regular, free, easily accessible and comprehensive information as well as

sufficient information on controversial issues of the grid extension such as health and

environmental impacts and technological alternatives (e.g. ground cable, overhead lines, smart grid,

alternating current, direct current). The main concerns with regard to the process level can be

derived from the mentioned needs, e.g. the lack of transparency and the exclusion of the planning

process. For example, it is mandatory to make transparent how the planning procedure is structured,

who has the possibility to participate and when and about what kind of topic.

Further major needs and concerns address the distributional level. Many stakeholders are

disquieted that the disadvantages of new power lines outweigh the advantages and that the

distribution of these is not equally shared between stakeholders. Residents, for example, often state

that it is unjust that energy-intensive companies are granted low energy charges whilst the price of

electricity is steadily growing for citizens. Especially transit regions fear that negative effects of

new transmission lines (e.g. intrusion of landscape, negative health impacts) outweigh their

beneficial effects (e.g. employment creation) within the region.

In addition, it can be noted that all stakeholders wish for fair and respectful interaction processes.

This wish relates to interpersonal justice and can be considered as an essential precondition for

shaping fair and acceptable planning and distributional processes.

The justice approach can scientifically explain and practically help to understand the respective

positions and reactions, more than some common explanations referring to self-interest, such as the

NIMBY-concept (i.e. Devine-Wright, 2012). It is important to consider all dimensions of justice

and to be aware that the criteria of the distributional level are much more connected to specific

project characteristics (technology, length, landscape etc.) than the criteria of the procedural level,

which have a more generalised validity.

2.4 Development of criteria to cope with stakeholders concerns and needs

Within the societal discussion concerning new energy infrastructure and the corresponding shaping

of planning procedures, there is consensus in principle about many topics, e.g. each stakeholder

group would agree that transparency is an important issue. Every stakeholder group would even

confirm its will to act transparently as much as possible. Despite this fact, the perspectives in terms

of the definition and perception what transparency actually means in a concrete planning situation

differ a lot among the different stakeholder groups.

In this context, one central step is to find a common language to make these differences visible. In

other words, this means leaving the ‘labelling level’ (transparency) and concretising in a precise

description what is expected by using this term in a specific situation: what does transparency

exactly mean for each of the involved stakeholder groups? Correspondingly, there is a need to

develop relevant (success) criteria for monitoring and evaluating planning processes of grid

extension measures: by means of an adequate monitoring process and by using transparent and

measurable criteria, subjectively different perceptions can be transferred to a common

communication level. The success criteria can be made usable for monitoring or evaluation for

example through the method of Goal Attainment Scaling (e.g. Kiresuk & Smith, 1994) or other

evaluation methods.

Due to country and project specific contexts, the outlined success criteria cannot be transformed

into universal measurable indicators. Therefore, it is important to know the economical, legal,


ecological and social conditions of the country or region where a specific project is processed.

Furthermore, the indicators should consider the unique characteristics of the envisaged grid project.

It makes a difference if a new transmission line project has a long distance and affects people of

different federal states or if it is a short-distance-project solely for a specific region. Considering the

number of possible affected stakeholders as well as the technology used, the indicators need to be

adapted to these specific conditions. Regarding their general characteristics parallels to the

“s.m.a.r.t”-approach (specific and by this means comprehensible; measureable–verifiable; accepted

(consensual) and binding; realistic; time-framed) from Doran (1981) are unavoidable.

Summarizing, the importance of recognising the broad range of stakeholder groups as well as of

their respective concerns and needs in the field of grid extension has been shown. Among all

relevant issues, the most critical aspect that should be addressed to have a process and output that is

perceived as fair is the comprehensible and broadly accepted explanation of the need of the new

transmission line as a mandatory base for any following steps. The majority of the interviewees

(residents, civil initiatives and environmental associations) stated that they are not interested in the

process of a grid project when they do not understand why it is necessary to build this transmission

line and to have a participatory process.

In order to bridge the gap between the principal knowledge about possible participation strategies

and their observed application challenges, the described methodological approach to define criteria

for each relevant issue is a mandatory step in order to increase transparency and to adjust

communication levels between the different stakeholder groups involved.

In addition, not only the participation methods as such, but also the way how and in which context

they are applied are of particular importance. By this means, a careful consideration of the regional

biographies, relationships between stakeholder groups, trust and communication structures are

mandatory. Focusing on the dimension of trust towards the institution being responsible for

participation, central questions are:

Who is initiating, offering and conducting participation?

How is the image of this institution/these institutions?

How is this institution / are these institutions connected to regional stakeholder groups?

The following Figure 5 illustrates the principal links between the context and the participation

methods and the particular importance of considering the preconditions of participation.

Figure 5: Simplified model regarding the relationship between participation and acceptance (see

Hildebrand et al., 2016)

Participation Procedural justice Acceptance

Relation Trust Attributions

Preconditions of participation


Considering psychological factors like trust and attributions between the stakeholder groups is

crucial in order to use the full potential of participation opportunities. If participation methods are

applied without a sensitive consideration of the contextual factors, the conflicts (in a region) can

even be increased. Consequently, social-regional preconditions of participation strategies have to be

analysed beforehand. Stakeholder analyses, stakeholder mapping, reflection of past projects and

processes together with stakeholders via interviews or workshops are useful approaches providing

the required knowledge.


3 STATE OF THE ART AND CRITICAL REVIEW

An important preparatory work for the developing of the entire INSPIRE-Grid project was the

analysis of the status of stakeholder participation in existing power line planning processes. In

comparison to other kind of infrastructures like wind turbines or biogas plants, fewer works are in

fact available in the scientific literature dealing with the involvement of different stakeholders

during the planning process for power lines.

As a first step a comprehensive literature review was carried out with the aims:

1. to identify a set of criteria for good participation as a basis for evaluating current planning

processes

2. to define a set of participatory methods suited for power lines planning processes.

As current planning processes we evaluated two cases in France and Norway, whose TSO are both

partners in the INSPIRE-Grid project.

The results reveal that, although current processes fulfil already several criteria for good

participation, they have two main shortcomings: (1) the discussion of needs for power lines is not

always carried out with the relevant stakeholders, and (2) explicit and structured participatory

decision-making mechanisms to manage inputs from stakeholders are often inexistent. These results

suggest that there is a concrete possibility to improve current planning processes by means of a

better stakeholder engagement and by changes in the current legal frameworks for power line

planning.

The results of this preparatory activity have been a useful input for the experimental activities

carried out in entire project, as we present in the next chapters, with the aim to contribute to solve

the highlighted shortcomings. Additionally, we describe a set of participatory tools to engage

stakeholders in planning processes for transmission lines.

3.1 Reviewing the existing researches dealing with the public acceptance of

impacting infrastructures and more specifically of energy facilities

Grid expansion in Europe is motivated by a constant increase in electricity consumption and by the

necessity to integrate intermittent renewable energy sources. However, opposition to grid expansion

causes delays that may compromise electricity supply security and a mid-term integration of

renewable energy source. Opposition to power lines arises from health concerns, nature protection,

landscape disruption and property value losses (see literature review in D3.2). A way to improve

acceptance for power lines is to integrate the affected stakeholders in the planning process.


Table 2: The potentials and limits of participation (based on an extensive literature review, see

D3.2 for details)

Potential/benefits Limits/challenges

1. improvement of democratic decision making

processes, increase of confidence-trust, contribution

to public accountability, promotion of solidarity

2. decrease of opposition, diffusion of conflicts,

creation of ownership and empowerment

3. improvement of policy effectiveness credibility and

legitimation of projects

4. elicitation of different perspectives, values,

interests, etc.

5. co-production of knowledge among those affected

by a decision (typically expert and lay knowledge)

6. adaptation of policy design to local issues

7. contribution to raising public awareness and support

for decisions

8. bringing to light new problem-solving options

9. create consensus or compromise towards shared

choices

1. lack of legitimacy and representativeness of the

decision

2. obstacles in the ‘macro-political up-take of mini

publics’, gaps between promises and results

3. wrong assumptions about the aims: e.g.

participation as a tool of legitimation of decisions

rather than investigation of citizens’ needs (which

are often pre-defined in the processes)

4. stabilization of existing power distributions,

slower decision making

5. time and resources constraints

6. difficulties to communicate complex scientific

information, especially to lay people

7. difficulties to reach a compromise on the final

decision (e.g. because of lack of preference

change, will manipulation, etc.)

From other renewable energy-related fields like wind power and biogas plants, procedural justice

through fairness and transparency in the planning are recurrent factors mentioned as a guarantee of

successful stakeholder engagement. Additionally, distributional justice is also a factor of success,

mainly in terms of fair distribution of perceived costs and benefits of the concerned infrastructure

(see D2.1). Finally, examples from non-energy related fields like natural hazard management show

several benefits and barriers of participation. On one hand, the main benefits are an inclusion of

public needs in the decision making process, increased awareness and knowledge of the

stakeholders, better credibility and legitimacy of the projects and, as a result of the previous ones,

improved policy effectiveness. On the other hand, neglecting power dynamics and failing to

integrate stakeholders’ perspectives and heterogeneity may lead to bad outcomes of the processes.

Indeed, participation may also increase conflicts, if it is not carried out properly.

Additionally to the review of the potentialities and limits of public participation, we considered

criteria for good participation to be then applied to planning processes for power lines, from

academic literature. Through our literature review, we isolated 13 criteria to evaluate good

participation (see Table 3 below).

Table 3: Criteria for good participation

Rep

rese

nta

tiv

e

nes

s

Ind

epen

den

ce

Ea

rly

inv

olv

emen

t

Infl

uen

ce

on

po

licy

Tra

nsp

are

ncy

Res

ou

rces

acc

essi

bil

ity

Ta

sk d

efin

itio

n

Str

uct

ure

d

dec

isio

n-

ma

kin

g

Eff

ecti

ven

ess

Tra

nsf

era

bil

ity

Fa

cili

tati

on

Fo

ster

ing

p

art

.

con

dit

ion

s

Inte

gra

tio

n

of

loc.

a

nd

sc

i.

kn

ow

led

ge

Rowe & Frewer (2000) X X X X X X X X X - - - -

Smith (2009) X - - X X - - X X X - - -

Webler & Tuler (2000) X - - X - X - - - - X X -

Reed (2008) X - X X - - X - - X X X X


For the evaluation of the projects, we selected a set of variables by taking into account the specific

characteristics of the energy sector and the main objectives of this activity. However, as we used

available grey literature to evaluate the projects, we could not use all variables related to the criteria

to evaluate planning processes. The selected variables are (for details, see D3.2):

1. Early discussion of stakeholder needs: have the needs for power lines been discussed with

potentially affected stakeholders (e.g. NGOs, civil society, private sector, landowners)? Data

to evaluate this variable are descriptions of the planning processes for power lines.

2. Representation of stakeholder groups: have the main affected stakeholder groups been

included in the decision making process (e.g. in form of stakeholder mapping)? The main

data sources were the stakeholder mapping performed by TSOs before starting power lines

projects.

3. Task definition: Is the task of stakeholder engagement (i.e. what is asked, what input will be

gathered, how it will be processed or what information will be communicated) clearly

stated? The main data sources for this variable are proceedings and invitation letters to

stakeholders.

4. Participatory decision-making method: is there a structured participatory method to include

stakeholder inputs in the project development? The main data used are reports describing

how stakeholder input was handled.

5. Stakeholder influence on outcome: did the input provided by stakeholders in the power

lines project influence the decision outcome (causing e.g. a change in the planning route or

layout of the power line)? The main data sources were reports describing how the inputs

have been taken into account for the considered project.

6. Independence of key actors: Did key actors, such as decision-makers or facilitators,

disclose their relationships to the sponsor? Are decisions made by separated actors? Data

used are descriptions of the planning processes.

The criteria identified have been then used to evaluate some planning processes in France and

Norway. In each country, we selected and evaluated seven to eight projects on the basis of available

academic and grey literature and documents provided by transmission system operators (TSO) with

TSO officers (see Figure 6, Figure 7 and Table 4). The analysis is qualitative and we used exactly

the same criteria and variables for both countries, to allow a consistent comparison. Rather than

providing an in-depth evaluation of the planning processes, the results present an overview aimed at

better understanding the need for improvements and the blind spots of current processes (see Table

5).


Figure 6: Geographical repartition of the French projects evaluated in this report

Figure 7: Geographical repartition of the Norwegian power lines projects evaluated in this research


The results of the evaluation show similar strengths and shortcomings in both countries (see Table

5). These results are drawn from a document analysis of the relevant literature and additionally

supported through 10 experts’ interviews, 5 in Norway and 5 in France, mostly TSOs. We also

gathered additional data through a workshop held in October 2014 in Berlin, where many actors

(TSOs, regulators and NGOs) dealing with issues related to acceptance of power lines could

exchange experiences.

Table 4: French and Norwegian selected projects (OHL: overhead lines, UGL: underground

lines)

France Norway

Project Project type

[amount of lines] Project

Project type

[amount of lines]

Cergy-Persan

OHL upgrade

2x400kV+1x225kV

(upgraded line) to

3x400kV

Bamble-Rød New OHL 1x420kV

Cotentin-Maine New OHL

1x400kV Stor-Oslo OHL Upgrade package

Haute Durance OHL package Klæbu-Viklandet OHL upgrade 1x300kV to

1x420kV

Deux Loires OHL and UGL package Sauda-Samnanger OHL upgrade 1x300kV to

1x420kV

Merlatière-Recouvrance New UGL 1x225kV Lyse-Stølaheia New OHL

1x420kV

Baixas-Santa Llogaia New UGL

1x320kVDC Ofoten-Balsfjord

New OHL

1x420kV

Avelin-Gavrelle

OHL upgrade

1x225kV+1x400kV

power upgrade Namsos-Roan-Storheia

New OHL

1x420kV

Lonny-Vesle OHL upgrade 1x400kV

power upgrade

Table 5: Summary of the evaluation of participatory practices in the planning processes for

power lines in France and Norway (+ consistently observed; +/– inconsistently

observed; – not observed)

Criteria Variable France Norway

Early involvement Early discussion of stakeholders’

needs – +/–

Representativeness Representation of stakeholders

groups +/– +

Task definition Stated task definition + +/–

Structured decision

making mechanisms

Participatory decision-making

methods – –

Influence on outcome Stakeholders’ influence on

outcome +/– +/–

Independence of

participants Independence of key participants +/– +/–

One of the main shortcomings is a missing open discussion of grid capacity needs with potentially

affected stakeholders as soon as the bottlenecks in the grid are identified in the planning process.


Another shortcoming is related to the decision-making mechanisms and, more precisely, to the

inclusion of stakeholders’ inputs into the decision-making process. Although today TSOs and

regulators gather a large amount of input from potentially affected stakeholders, the way this input

is weighted to make decisions is often neither explicitly stated nor transparent. Other aspects of

participatory processes are not entirely fulfilled, for instance the systematic inclusion of relevant

parties through stakeholder mapping in France, or the missing statement on the use of stakeholders’

input in Norway. Nevertheless several criteria are fulfilled in current processes, like clear statement

of stakeholders’ tasks during the engagement process. Additionally, both planning processes, in

France and Norway, show a split in the decision-making bodies, where decisions are taken by many

stakeholders acting at different levels and with different purposes. This shows a certain degree of

independency of decision-making bodies where, for example, the proponents of the power lines

projects are not the only ones entitled to make decisions, but they have to rely on other agencies to

get the building permits.

Today, TSO’s are aware of the shortcoming of current planning processes for power lines, and they

continuously improve their processes (RGI, 2012), mainly on a voluntary basis. However, changes

can happen also at the legal level. For instance, methods and tools to effectively consider

stakeholders preferences and perspectives (including, for example, stakeholder mapping, analysis of

their preferences, interests, wants and needs; see D2.1) could be formally integrated in the decision

making process, in the same way that environmental impacts assessment are usually required to get

a building permit for power lines.

3.2 Establishing a toolbox

To include stakeholders in planning processes for power lines, many tools are available and a

selection of the most appropriate ones is necessary. As there is already a vast literature available on

tools, methods and methodologies to improve stakeholder participation in decision-making, we

decided to focus mainly on the evaluation on current participative practices for power lines

planning. Therefore, attention was given to participation tools suitable for power lines. Basing the

work on the participation tools for power lines published by Roland Berger in 2014 (European

Commission Tender No. ENER/B1/2013/371), other relevant tools have been identified. Moreover,

other experiences of three transmission system operators (TSO) have been taken into account: RTE

in France, Statnett in Norway and Swissgrid in Switzerland to identify strengths and weaknesses of

different stakeholders’ involvement tools (see Chapter 4 in D3.2).

We identified thirteen ‘tools’ to involve stakeholders in power lines projects. These tools can be

classified on the basis of the communicative aim (see Table 6). Most of the selected tools for

stakeholder participation are already used in power lines planning processes. However, some tools

are not used yet, and others have been only sporadically used by TSOs, for instance World Café or

engaging a mediator. Using these additional tools could potentially improve participatory processes,

enabling a closer and smoother cooperation between project owners and stakeholders.


Table 6: Stakeholders’ engagement tools and their respective strength and weaknesses

Tool Function Audiences Strengths Weaknesses

Public

space

event

Information,

dialogue,

participation

Adjacent communities,

local citizens’ initiatives,

land owners, local media

Face-to-face contact

Wrong audience

Divergent statements if

there are different firms

of the energy sector at

the event

Town hall

meeting

Information,

dialogue


land owners, local

elected officials, local

citizens’ initiatives,

power producers,

permitting authorities

regulator, national policy

makers, environmental

NGOs, experts, media

Face-to-face contact

transparency,

detailed information,

reach broad public

with exhibition mode:

opening hours after normal

working hours (e.g. 18:00 -

21:00)

High costs in

manpower

if there are strong

opponents (and panel

discussion):

storm of outrage

possible; problem

solvable with

exhibition mode:

dynamic of audience

better controllable

Round

table

Dialogue,

participation

Local citizens’

initiatives, adjacent

communities, land

owners, local elected

officials, industrial

consumers, permitting

authorities,

environmental NGOs,

media

Compiled solutions of the

roundtable have a higher

credibility (different

interests considered)

It is possible that there

will be no consensus in

the end

World

Café Dialogue

Local citizens’


communities, land


officials, permitting

authorities,

environmental NGOs,

media

OR:

Environmental NGOs,

regulating agencies,

national/regional policy

makers, industrial

consumers, power

producers

Everyone gives a statement

(even a shy person),

miscellaneous views and

solutions (because there is

an inflow of diverse inputs)

No clear results

guaranteed (many

different points of

view),

Maybe many similar

answers on the

questions

Closed-

door

meeting

Dialogue

Local citizens’

initiatives, land owners,

local elected officials,

environmental NGOs

Briefing with critical and

important stakeholders

before roundtable/

town hall meeting (ad-hoc

character)

Risk of negative

perception by the

public

Citizens

helpline

Information,

dialogue,

participation

Citizen Conveys image of

‘accessibility’

No quick answer to

very specific questions

Project

informatio

n

offices

Information,

dialogue


local citizens’ initiatives,

land owners

Information easy available

for the public, permanent

dialogue possible

Relatively cost

intensive

office only reachable

for people who live in


the direct surroundings

Doorstep

visits

Information,

dialogue,

participation

Land owners, adjacent

communities, local

citizens’ initiatives

Produce trust and increases

the image of the project

developer, good to establish

in the region

time-consuming

Field visit Information,

dialogue

Local citizens’


communities, land

owners, media,

environmental NGOs

Potentially creates good

relationships between the

owners of the process and

the stakeholders

Field visits facilitate the

visualization and

presentation of a project,

could be combined with a

town hall meeting or

roundtable

High costs

Project

website

Information

(and Dialog) All

Information everywhere

available

no printing costs

People, which prefer

traditional media, are

not reachable

Social

Media

Information,

Dialog,

participation

All Reach a wide audience

Risk of a firestorm of

protests

(ensuring quality

information, try to

anticipate public

reaction)

Possible bias in the

treatment of negative

messages

Printed

publicatio

ns

(brochures,

fact sheets,

flyers, etc.)

Information All

Broad public reachable

Traditional media readers

reachable

Publication as a give-away

at town hall meetings or

public space events

Difficult to distribute in

a way that it reaches all

important stakeholders

No guarantee materials

will be read

Limited capability to

communicate

complicated concepts

Costs for design,

printing and

distribution

Mediation Dialogue,

participation

Local citizens’


communities, land


officials, permitting

authorities,

environmental NGOs,

media

Potentially useful to improve

the situation when

stakeholders and project

owners have radically

opposing polarized positions

Mediator may be

perceived as biased

This set of engagement tools has been subsequently improved through the development of a

decision tree and a functional model (see D5.2 for details) for selecting engagement tools and for

choosing the engagement methods that were used in the experimental activities (see also section

5.4, chapter 6 and section 7.2).


4 METHODOLOGIES FOR THE ASSESSMENT AND COMPARISON

OF GRID INFRASTRUCTURES

The realization of new grid infrastructures involves disparate risks, costs, and benefits for

stakeholders, affected populations, and surrounding environments. The asymmetric distribution of

project impacts has often fuelled intense local opposition and compounded already complex

technical and economic considerations. In order to reduce and to manage this problem, it is essential

the ability to correctly assess and compare all relevant impacts and benefits of the proposed

infrastructure and of the possible alternatives. In the INSPIRE-Grid project a specific activity was

carried out to analyse, single out and customise methods, supporting the decision-making process,

in particular for the assessment of risks and benefits of grid infrastructures, the comparison of

different alternative options and the spatial representation of the effect with a strong stakeholder

involvement.

The objective of this activity is twofold:

Improvement of the existing methodologies to estimate, represent and compare the effects

(impact and benefits) of transmission projects in Europe within a multi-criteria and multi-

stakeholder framework.

Improvement of the entire decision-making process making it transparent and repeatable and

establishing the conditions for a proactive participation of the stakeholders.

In order to reach such objectives, the activity has been composed by the following steps:

Critical review of existing methodologies, concerning the assessment of risks and benefits of grid

infrastructures, the comparison of different alternative options and the spatial

representation of the effect.

Estimation of the effects: development of methodologies for the life cycle assessment of grid

infrastructures.

Comparison of alternative routes: development of multi-stakeholder and multi-criteria

methodologies, starting from the existing ones, with regard to the electric grid decision-

making processes.

Representation of the effects: implementation of web-GIS tools

Support to the application of the methodologies to the case studies

Recommendations and limits of methodologies for the assessment and comparison of grid

infrastructures

The following sections describe the main results achieved during the project, as regards the three

methodologies applied in the project:

Methodologies for the life cycle assessment

Methodologies to support the decision making process, including the use of Multi Criteria

Analysis (MCA) for the comparison and assessment of different infrastructure options

Methodologies and tools for spatial representation of the effects (Web GIS)

4.1 Methodologies for life cycle assessment

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a methodology enabling the evaluation of the environmental impact

of a product or system, along its life cycle, from natural resources extraction and manufacturing to


decommissioning and waste treatment. LCA considers several impact categories, related to

damages to human health, ecosystems quality and resource use. LCA could therefore provide

additional information about a grid project's environmental impacts (or avoided impacts) to support

the decision making.

4.1.1 Review of existing methodologies

A review of methodologies for life cycle assessment of environmental impacts, at a global level was

conducted as a first step of this activity (see details in deliverable 4.1). Most of the life cycle

assessments available on power systems are focused on electricity generation, and only a few are

related to power transmission. Several existing studies about power transmission systems were

reviewed: life cycle inventory of the Swiss power grid in Ecoinvent (Frischknecht et al., 2007), life

cycle assessment of power transmission networks at country level of Great Britain and Norway

(Harrison et al., 2010; Jorge and Hertwich, 2013), carbon footprint of a reinforcement of the

European grid (Liu et al., 2010; Gaxiola et al., 2012). They showed that the impacts of power

transmission are tightly linked to the ones of power generation. Impacts of electricity transmission

strongly depend on the electricity mix because power losses in the network are a major contributor.

Studies focusing on greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions also show that a transmission grid

reinforcement project can lead to reduction of GHG emissions, for instance by shifting production

from power plants with high emission rates to less carbon intensive plants, such as renewable

energy sources. However, none of the reviewed methodologies meet the requirement of properly

covering both the impacts due to infrastructure building, maintenance, and decommissioning on one

hand, and the impacts due to modification of electricity production by power plants on the other

hand. Consequential life cycle assessment, which aims at assessing the environmental impacts

resulting from a decision, was identified as the most appropriate methodology to assess the impacts

of a grid project. However, this approach is currently at a research stage and needs a proper

standardisation.

4.1.2 Estimation of the effects: development of methodologies for life cycle assessment

The implementation of consequential life cycle assessment in the context of transmission grid

reinforcement projects is presented in Deliverable 4.2. It follows the four steps required by the

International Standard: goal definition, scope definition, life cycle inventory, and life cycle impact

assessment.

The goal was defined as follows: evaluating the environmental impacts resulting from the decision

to carry out a grid project. This methodology is focused on grid project with the following

characteristics: high voltage alternative current (AC 220 kV to AC 400 kV), overhead line or

underground cable, new line or upgrade of existing line, with or without modification of the

equipment in substations. The need definition phase of a grid project was chosen as being the more

relevant for applying LCA, because decisions taken during this phase are the most influential on the

life cycle environmental impacts. The use of LCA indicators in a broader assessment methodology

evaluating the overall costs and benefits of a grid project, and the communication of its results to

decision-makers and stakeholders, was also identified as relevant.

As regards the scope definition, a functional analysis was carried out for the main systems affected

by a grid project: high voltage transmission line, transmission network, power system. The

functional unit of the system to be assessed in the methodology was defined as follows: "Provide a

power transfer capacity of up to a power P in standard conditions, at voltage V and complying with


the applicable regulation, between substations A and B of the transmission network, for the

reference year Y".

In order to determine the environmental impacts of a grid project, impacts which would occur if the

project is commissioned are compared to the ones which would occur in the do-nothing alternative.

Carrying out a grid project has several types of consequences on the power system, which translate

into changes in environmental impacts. A qualitative analysis of the magnitude of these

consequences in terms of change in environmental impact was performed. The system boundaries

were defined to include consequences related to building, operating, maintaining and

decommissioning the transmission grid project's infrastructure, as well as the consequences on the

electricity production of existing or planned power plants (see Figure 8).

Figure 8 – Consequences of the decision to carry out a grid project

Guidelines for modelling both types of consequences were produced. In particular it is

recommended that the operation of the power system shall be simulated both with and without the

assessed grid reinforcement project for a reference year, which can be chosen at the commissioning

date or later in the future. The impacts due to the grid project infrastructure shall be calculated for

an operation of 80 years (corresponding to the lifetime of conductors and towers) and scaled to one

year of operation.

The methodology for data collection and subsequent life cycle inventory calculation was then

detailed. The general steps of this methodology were designed to be applicable to any grid project,

but the example of an overhead line was used to provide detailed recommendations on data

collection regarding the infrastructure. In order to quantify the changes in electricity production,

results from power system simulations are required. The use of existing simulations, typically

carried out for techno-economic study (e.g. in ENTSO-E’s TYNDP), is recommended. These

results can be combined with data from life cycle inventory database, such as Ecoinvent, to

determine the pollutant emissions and natural resource consumptions resulting from the decision to

carry out the project.


Finally, LCA indicators were selected based on an analysis of existing recommendations, while

taking into account the practical requirements of stakeholder engagement. A complete set of

seventeen indicators was proposed, covering all the scientifically relevant impacts categories. A

reduced set, more adapted for communication purposes, was also proposed. Various strategies were

applied to aggregate results of different impacts categories into the following seven indicators (see

Figure 9): climate change, energetic resource depletion, abiotic (mineral) resource depletion, water

resource depletion, radioactive waste, damage to human health and damage to ecosystems.

Figure 9 – Selected indicators for LCA (bold) and related impact categories

4.1.3 Application of LCA to the Cergy-Persan case study

The methodology presented above was tested on a case study: the Cergy-Persan project from RTE.

This project consists in upgrading an existing overhead line from 220 kV to 400 kV. LCA was used

to assess the environmental impacts related to one year of operation of the grid infrastructure built

as part of the Cergy-Persan project (overhead line and substations). The year chosen for this

assessment was 2030. To cover a range of possible futures, several scenarios were used for the year

2030, based on scenarios previously developed by RTE in its “Generation Adequacy report on

electricity supply-demand balance” (RTE, 2012).

A software tool was developed using the Python programming language, to calculate LCA results

from input parameters and power system simulation results. This tool was later used to perform

sensitivity analyses to identify the most influential parameters, some of which come from RTE data

and hypotheses on the Cergy-Persan project. The uncertainty of these parameters was determined

and propagated to the results, in order to assess the results robustness.

As the tool developed uses several parameters from RTE Cergy-Persan project, the tool cannot be

used directly on other grid projects (i.e. without RTE’s expertise on power system modelling).

Additional data was collected on the infrastructure to be built as part of the Cergy-Persan grid

project, focusing on the elements which appeared as the most influential on the first results

obtained. Moreover, some additional work was required to use the output of the power system

simulations as input for the LCA calculation. Indeed, several types of peak-load power plants which

have a similar operation cost but very different environmental impacts were aggregated in a single


category (e.g. combustion turbines and demand-side management). These types of power plants

needed to be differentiated to perform LCA, which required additional modelling work.

LCA results were calculated for four scenarios, based on a combination of two aspects:

the development of RES (Renewable Energy Sources): business as usual (“Median”

scenario) or high integration of RES (“New mix” scenario);

the use of demand-side management to solve network congestions: high or low share.

Environmental impacts were calculated for seven indicators. For most impact categories, impacts

caused or avoided by changes in electricity production are several orders of magnitude higher than

impacts caused by the grid project’s infrastructure during construction, maintenance or dismantling.

However, in all scenarios, the infrastructure is the main contributor to abiotic resource depletion.

Despite being scenario dependent, results also show that a grid project can result in environmental

impacts being avoided (compared to a scenario where the project would not be carried out).

Results obtained for the Cergy-Persan case study are specific to it. LCA should be applied to more

projects, using different technologies (e.g. underground cable) or meeting different needs (RES

integration, market integration, demand growth) to have a more complete overview of possible

results.

4.2 Methodologies to support the decision making process

4.2.1 Tiering approach

The decision-making process regarding power lines infrastructures can schematically be subdivided

in four stages: Strategy, Determination of need, Project preparation and Spatial planning,

Permitting.

The Strategy stage, in particular, is necessary and often in some way disregarded. It concerns the

energy strategic vision at the national and supranational level that justifies the electric need that

gives rise to the process.

Participation is essential at all stages, although the roles of different stakeholders will be

different at different levels: for instance, supranational institutions will have a more relevant role

at the strategic stage and a minor one at the Permitting stage, while the opposite will be true for

citizens.

Our field work regarded substantially projects at the Project preparation and Spatial planning stage

or at the Permitting stage. However, in more than one occasion, it emerged the need to start an

effective participation process at the Strategy and Determination of need stages and to connect it to

the following stages clearly. For instance, in the Hinkley-Point C project, UK, the sharpest

criticisms about the project in the real participation process were about the fact that the huge and

costly participation process organised by the TSO (National Grid) was about the details of the

project (variants of a corridor and the exact route within the corridor), which in the end made no

such big difference, instead of regarding radical alternatives as really different corridors, and the use

of different technologies.

We therefore recommend the use of a tiering approach, including environmental

considerations in the assessments done at all the different stages in the overall process. Tiering

is the process by which ‘higher-tier’ or strategic decisions influence and set the context for other,

subsequent ‘lower-tier’ or more detailed decisions (policies set the context for plans, and plans in

turn set the context for programmes and then projects). There are many important advantages by


preparing a sequence of linked environmental assessments at different decision-making levels,

primarily because it can give to the assessment issues the appropriate amount of attention and detail

at the right time, in line with the project maturity level.

Figure 10 - Participation at the different stages of the decision making process

In order to obtain an effective decision process, at each stage all the reasonable alternatives for

that stage have to be generated. “Reasonable” means that the alternative is feasible and it is of

interest for at least some stakeholders. The alternative selected at one stage is then the input for the

following stage, where that alternative will be further detailed generating new alternatives. Clearly,

the generation of reasonable alternatives requires stakeholders engagement, because a single actor

will not be able to interpret correctly and enact other stakeholders interests.

Further, it is important that at each stage the do-nothing alternative, usually called zero-alternative,

is considered. The zero-alternative is particularly important at the first stages of the decision

process: as the process goes on, the choice of the zero-alternative over the project becomes more

costly and possibly unrealistic; this is, for instance, the case in which the less critical parts of a

strategic alternative have already finished their decision making process and are under construction.

In all the real case studies we dealt with in INSPIRE-Grid, the zero-alternative was in fact not an

option. This can lead in many cases to strong dissatisfaction and unsolvable conflicts with the

stakeholders, even if they understand the need for a power line.

Then, the alternatives for each stage have to be compared and assessed, taking into account all the

socio-economic, environmental and technical aspects positively and negatively affected. The use of

Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) can support the decision maker to select the most suitable

alternative in integrated and participated way.

4.2.2 Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA)

In complex decision-making processes like those regarding grid infrastructures, the need to take

into account different criteria is currently widely recognised. However, there is much less

STRATEGY Strategic alternatives

DETERMINATION

OF NEEDS

Areas of intervention /

macro corridors

PROJECT

PREPARATION

& SPATIAL

PLANNING

Corridors

PERMITTING Alternative routesCITIZ

EN

S

INSTITUTIONS& AUTHORITIES

LO

CA

L

SU

PER

NA

TIO

NA

L

& N

ATIO

NA

L


accordance on how to do it, and in particular on how to structure the decision process in order to

consider the different criteria in the final decision.

In INSPIRE-Grid we tested the use of a formalized MCA method to reach synthesis conclusions

regarding the choice among alternatives, considering conflicting criteria measured in different units.

The MCA methodology has been experimentally applied with local stakeholders in two cases of

construction of a new electric grid:

Bamble-Rød project, Norway

Aurland-Sogndal project, Norway

and tested in three validation workshops, one in the UK based on a real case of construction of a

new electric grid, the others in Italy and Germany, based on a fictitious case:

Hinkley-Point C project, United Kingdom

Utopia 1, fictitious, Italy

Utopia 2, fictitious, Germany

Besides the validation workshops, the partners carried out additional smaller simulation exercises to

test the hypotheses and improve the workshop format and design:

a simulation exercise with twelve students at the master course in Management and the

Economics of Energy and the Environment (MEDEA) organized by the Scuola Enrico

Mattei of ENI in Milano;

a simulation exercise with thirty ETH Zurich students.

When choosing a MCA method, there are many criteria to consider (Løken, 2007). Each of the

methods has its own advantages and drawbacks, and it is not possible to claim that any one of the

methods is better than the others (see literature review in D4.1). The choice of the method mostly

depends on the preferences of the decision-maker and the analyst. It is important however that the

decision-makers understand the logical structure of the methodology, in order to trust the

recommendations obtained and at the same time understand their limitations. A method that reflects

the user's ‘true values’ in the best possible way should be chosen; even better, sometimes the

problem could be studied with two different methods, to compare results obtained with different

approaches. It is important to consider the suitability, validity and user-friendliness of the methods.

It is relevant to mention– using the words of Roy (1999) and Clímaco (2004) – that the role of

decision-aiding (and in particular of MCA) is not to discover hidden truths, but rather to contribute

to constructing individual convictions, collective decisions and compromises between multiple, and

often conflicting, rationalities, stakes and values. Although MCA cannot be expected to solve all

problems, it may and should allow participants to structure debate and facilitate participation and

negotiation, especially by helping to establish a climate of confidence and by providing a common

understanding of the problem.

Simply using MCA is not the solution of the problem. What is important is which form of MCA is

used, and, even more, how it is used. For instance, discussing the criteria among stakeholders, and

considering all the feasible alternatives in the evaluation process is in general more important than

using a formalized MCA process.

Case studies and validation workshops carried out in INSPIRE-Grid seemed to validate our work

hypotheses regarding MCA:

1. A proper use of MCA can foster stakeholder participation.


2. MCA can be used to properly manage conflicts and support the choice of a good alternative,

possibly reducing times and costs necessary to reach a satisfactory decision.

In particular, these effects are the result of:

structuring the problem in a clear and rational way, that, if transparent, allows the

stakeholders to

- understand the case and the underlying conflicts

- express their value system within the proposed logical framework

making computations, according to the chosen MCA method and based on the data obtained

in the structuring phase, to highlight

- which alternatives certainly do not constitute a good choice

- which alternatives are more/less conflictual

- possible margins of negotiation

Table 7: Main characteristics of the MCA application to case studies and validation

workshops

CASE-STUDIES

Main objective: Check if MCA could be used to structure debate, facilitate participation and elicit individual/group

preferences in real processes of stakeholder engagement

Bamble-Rød

Description Place and date Application of the methodology Results

New 34 km

420 kV

power line

4

alternatives

10 mixed

stakeholders

Oslo-Skien Telemark county,

NO

May 8th

-12nd

2015

- Elicitation of the individual

preferences on the effects of the

alternatives, according to MCA, by

means of structured interviews

- MCA computations, based on the

individual preferences. Comparison of

the results with the choice already

done in the real process

- No difficulties for all the

stakeholders to elicitate their

preferences

- The information gained was

sufficient to obtain information about

their value system and their

preferences on alternatives

- According to MCA calculations,

there is not high conflict on the

choice done in the real process

(satisfactory for all stakeholders)

Aurland-Sogndal


New 50 km

420 kV

power line

3

alternatives

7 mixed

stakeholders

Sogndal, Sogn og

Fjordane county,

NO

May 3rd

2016

- Elicitation of the individual

preferences on the effects of the

alternatives, according to MCA, by

means of structured interviews

- Group discussion (2 working

groups), simulating an ideal

participation process, for the elicitation

of the group preferences on the effects

of the alternatives, according to MCA

- MCA computations, based both on

the individual and group preferences,

aimed at obtaining indications about

the preferred alternatives

- One of the alternatives (alt. 1a)

seems definitely the best choice,

because it does not generate

meaningful conflict.

The interaction involved very few

stakeholders so this conclusion can’t

be completely validated.


VALIDATION WORKSHOPS

Main objective: Test MCA methodology by elicitation of the individual and group preferences in two fictional and

one real case study.

WS Utopia1


New 80-140

km 380 kV

power line

9

alternatives

Approximate

ly 30 people:

TSOs and

technicians

Milano, IT

May 19th

and 20th

2015

- Role play game

- Elicitation of the individual and

groups (4 working groups) preferences

on the effects of the alternatives,

according to fictious roles assigned to

participants, by means of structured

interviews and group discussion

simulating an ideal participation process

- MCA computations aimed at

obtaining indications about the preferred

alternatives by group and individuals

- Discussion with the participants of the

methodology used and of the results

- Survey on satisfaction about the

participation to the game

- Without any external facilitation,

all the groups reached an agreement

on the preferences elicitation.

- The computed preferences on the

alternatives allowed to show very

clearly conflicts and possible

negotiation margins

- From the survey, both the proposed

methodology in general and focusing

the group discussion according to

MCA methodology were considered

useful.

WS Hinkley-Point C


New 30 km

400 kV

power line

(stretch

Portbury-

Portishead)

2

alternatives

10 TSOs

Birmingham, UK

March 17th

2016

- Discussion about how to structure

the decision problem according to

MCA


groups preferences (2 working groups)

on the effects of the alternatives by

means of structured interviews and a

group discussion simulating an ideal

participation process


obtaining indications about the

preferred alternatives by group and

individuals

- Discussion with the participants of

the methodology used and of the

results

- Survey on participation/satisfaction

on MCA session and its results

- Comparison on the structure of the

problem in the real process and that

proposed by means of MCA

- From the survey, it emerged that

the way proposed to structure the

problem was considered effective

and useful to enhance public

participation.

- The elicitation of preferences on

the effects of the alternatives was

considered useful, also to foster

participation.

WS Utopia2


New 40-80

km 380 kV

power line

7

alternatives

6 mixed

stakeholders

Schwäbisch

Gmünd, Baden-

Württemberg

Region, DE

July 5th

2016


groups (1 working group) preferences

on the effects of the alternatives by

means of structured interviews and

group discussion simulating an ideal

participation process


obtaining indications about the

preferred alternatives by group and

individuals

- Discussion with the participants of

the methodology used and of the

results

- Agreement on common ranking of

the criteria, without any difficulty.

- discussion connected to the MCA

was perceived by participants as very

intense and interesting.

- The need of a process perspective

was emphasized.

- Main issues of skepticism were

related to questions regarding the

transfer into real planning situations

(dimension of time and

representativeness of complexity of

stakeholders groups).


Survey on satisfaction about the

participation to the game

4.2.3 Criteria and indicators

In INSPIRE-Grid, we defined an example of criteria tree (see an extract in Figure 11): the criteria

refers to the three main areas (Monetary) Costs, Environment and Health, Socio-economic aspects,

corresponding to the first level of the criteria tree. Criteria are then further detailed, and for each

leaf of the criteria tree we defined one or more indicators to measure the corresponding criterion.

The set of indicators must be complete, in order to take into account all the effects of an alternative,

and non-redundant, so that no effect is counted twice. Indicators must be easy to understand but also

to be populated: theoretically perfect indicators that cannot be populated are completely useless.

We then customised the standard criteria tree and indicators theoretically defined, to be considered

a starting point, for each of the case studies and validation workshops, based on its peculiarities,

critical aspects, and spatial context. For instance, we included a “flood risk” indicator for Hinkley

Point C case, and an “ice falls” indicator for Aurland-Sogndal case. In general, some of the criteria

of the standard tree could be not relevant in the specific case, while there could be the need to add

new ones.

Figure 11 - An extract of the generic criteria tree proposed in D4.3.


Indicators can be quantitative or qualitative, and for many of them a qualitative estimate based on

experts’ judgement is all that can be obtained. Actually, for some indicators it is quite natural to

have only qualitative estimates (e.g. visual interference of the line), while for others (e.g. impact on

biodiversity) quantitative estimates would be possible and desirable, but often too costly or difficult

to obtain.

Some indicators, in particular those regarding “noise”, “electromagnetic fields”, “worker safety”,

are usually considered only to verify their compliance with the current legislation. This means that

in the MCA analysis they have to be considered as constraints and not as indicators. If and in which

cases these should be considered also as indicators is still an open point of discussion.

In designing a new project, TSOs always respect law limits, in particular those relative to people

health. Despite this, in some cases, TSOs themselves introduced a general indicator “well-being”

that includes all the disturbances and annoyances that people possibly undergo when a new power

line is built in proximity of their houses or of their cultural, educational and recreational points of

interests. This indicator can cover several impacts as visual, life conditions, loss of property value,

health and so on.

It is difficult to consider global indicators (e.g. GHG emissions), because in most cases they are not

estimated and reported in the projects documents (Environmental Assessment Statement,

documents for participation …), since they are not of local interest. The use of a calculation method

such as LCA could come to the aid (see section 4.1). LCA allows making an overall assessment

taking into account the entire project life cycle in a global way.

We have seen that the construction of a proper criteria tree and a suitable set of indicators is a

fundamental step in MCA methodology, for a correct assessment process. Furthermore, it can be

very useful even if MCA is not going to be used as an instrument in the decision-making process

because it helps to make clarity on the effects of the alternatives.

In stakeholders’ consultation process it is highly recommended to choose criteria and indicators to

reach a shared base for the following steps of the assessment process, and to reduce the overall

conflict on decision.

4.2.4 MCA and Environmental compensation

The aim of the compensation is to rebalance the residual negative impact of a project, i.e. the

negative impacts that could not be avoided or mitigated. In practice, however, the compensatory

approach is often the result of a negotiation process between the involved actors, taking place once

the project has been decided, the outcome of which is mainly monetary and not aimed to rebalance

the environmental damage.

The environmental compensation should instead be designed and built with the project. The

environmental benefits of compensations have to be more or less equivalent to the negative residual

impacts of the project. The benefits due to the compensation should consist in the solution of

environmental problem of the project area, even if not dependent by the project.

A MCA approach is particularly suitable to support the assessment process about not only the

project itself but also about the compensation needed to offset its environmental impacts. MCA

would allow: to design a project taking into account its inclusion in the environmental context, to

decide about compensation measures through a transparent and participated process (that for

example allows to address the issue of the acquisition of the areas before the project is done), to


untie the compensation from the outcome of local negotiations, to minimise the risk of not

implementing compensatory measures, enhancing their quality and significance.

4.3 Methodologies and tools for spatial representations – Web GIS

A Web GIS is an application that enables the visualization of geographically referenced data

through a web interface available online; in short, it can be defined as the presentation of the results

of GIS (Geographical Information System) elaborations through internet. Differently form GIS tool

used in spatial elaborations, it does require neither any specific knowledge in geographical data

analysis nor professional or specialised software; a web browser and a working internet connection

are all that is needed and users are allowed to build their preferred visualisation and to access easily

relevant information.

The aim of the research activities was to investigate and analyse the Web GIS functionalities that

could support the people involvement in the decision-making process, enhance their participation,

and enable them to express their own opinion about the alternatives or effects. Due to its specific

characteristics and the geographical character of the considered data, the most appropriate stage for

use of Web GIS is Spatial Planning.

Web GIS are already currently used for presenting some information about grid infrastructures.

Current implementations allow the user to visualise the possible routes of the power line against a

background map, to retrieve some basic data about the development project, and to localise possible

sensitive areas like urban centres, cultural landmarks, and environmental protected areas like the

Nature 2000 network. In this project we studied how these basic functionalities can be improved or

extended in order to support public participation and possibly empower the role of the public in the

decision making process.

Figure 12: Direct link from the Utopia Web GIS to Google Streetview

For this purpose, a prototype of participative Web GIS has been developed and implemented

(http://utopia.rse-web.it) in the INSPIRE-Grid project, focusing on the functionalities which could

improve their participation, enable them to interact with the decision makers and the proponents,

and to express their own opinion about possible alternative routes or solutions. Referring to Rowe

and Frewer (2005), participatory processes can be classified into three categories, according to the


direction of the information flow between the host of the process and the public. They can be

described as follows (see Deliverable D3.2 of INSPIRE-Grid project):

public communication: here, information flows from the sponsor of the process toward

concerned stakeholders or the public.

public consultation: when stakeholders or the public are consulted, information flows toward

the sponsor. In this case, there is no direct dialogue between the sponsor and the public.

active participation and co-decision: here, information is exchanged between the

stakeholders and the sponsor in form of a dialogue and some specific role is assigned in

some form to the public in the decision making process.

Accordingly, the functionalities added in the prototype have been classified into three main

categories. Before all, some tools for improving standard exploration were made available in the

prototype. These include the availability of different background maps, and among them:

OpenStreetMap reporting the routes of the existing power lines4; a tool for measuring distances and

areas, which can be used, for instance, to compute the distance between the power line and the own

home; a direct link to Google Streetview in order to let the user explore the real surroundings of the

power line (see previous figure).

Related to public consultation, in Utopia Web GIS it has been inserted a tool enabling users to send

comments and documents about some specific point. The benefit of the Web GIS is that the user

can operate with a geographical interface to select the point of interest and to attach his/her

comment, for instance to point out a landmark or an undetected critical situation (see next figure).

The system automatically detects the geographical coordinates and, before sending an email, checks

that the sender is a real person and not, for instance, an automatic program.

Figure 13: Sending comment through the Utopia Web GIS

In relation to active participation, a tool has been implemented in order to allow the user to

express her/his opinion about the most relevant points in the area interested by the development

4 http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features#Power (consulted on 9 December 2016)

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Map_Features#Power


project. Specifically, the user, after having provided her/his credentials, can choose and insert

(using web-GIS functionalities, like point & click) three outstanding points for different typologies

and different protection levels, such as: places to be fully protected or to be preserve unaltered;

points of affection, important to preserve; places where mitigation measures are appropriate.

Collecting and storing these preferences allows the user to give a direct input to the decision maker

and the researchers to identify the most sensible points and to compute the score of the different

alternatives routes according to their possible interference with these points of interest. The aim is

to build a shared knowledge on a region that might be affected by overhead lines, in order to better

assess impacts of the different options and to provide customised maps that can be used by

stakeholders to represent their main concerns on a spatial basis. This is intended to make real and

operating the principles stated in the European Landscape Convention, in which the landscape is

defined as “an area, as perceived by people, whose character is the result of the action and

interaction of natural and/or human factors”. The term “landscape” is thus defined as a zone or area

as perceived by local people or visitors, whose visual features and character are the result of the

action of natural and/or cultural factors. This Convention applies to the entire territory of the EU

and covers natural, rural, urban and peri-urban areas. It concerns landscapes that might be

considered outstanding as well as every day or degraded landscapes. In order to implement these

principles in practice, a strong feedback from general public is needed and, as the physical support

of the landscape is space, Web GIS is one of the most appropriate tool for this purpose.

In addition, starting from the stated people preferences, an interference indicator is computed,

using an additive, non-linear function of the distances from each preferred point and the route of the

power line:

∑ ( )

( ) ( ⁄ )

where Fk is the interference of the alternative route k, xik is the distance between alternative k and

the point i, and D is a characteristic distance, representing the distance beyond that the interference

is negligible. The next figure depicts how fD changes with the value of D.


Figure 14: The interference indicator for a single point and different characteristic length D

It has to be noted that this interference indicator has a minimum value of zero and a maximum value

equal to the total number of preference points. It can be used for comparing several alternatives of

the same development project but cannot be used to compare the performance in different

processes.

The prototype Web GIS allows the user to obtain a real time computation of the values of the

interference indicator for the alternative routes and for the current set of preference points, and to

rank them accordingly. This kind of interaction can be considered as “active participation” because,

in the consultation process, comments are evaluated and the manager of the decision process choose

if they are relevant or not. In this case people preferences are directly used, without any external

mediation or assessment, and an index is computed which is directly used in making the decision,

together with the cost of line or other indicators. In this sense, people take part directly in the

decision.


Figure 15: Schematic representation of the difference between a consultation process and the use of

the interference indicator

In this respect, the interference indicator can be used and compared in a Multi Criteria Analysis

together with all others selected criteria.

4.3.1 Testing of the tool

The tool was presented and discussed in five workshops held in four different countries, with a

quite varied audience. In the following table, the place, date and main attendance of the five

workshops are reported in Table 8:

In all occasions, the presentation method was essentially the same: the functionalities of the Web

GIS were described by a Power Point presentation and, at the same time, they were demonstrated

using the tool and attendees were encouraged to experience them directly connecting to the relevant

web site.

Table 8: Workshops where the Web GIS questionnarie was distributed

Location Country Date Attendance Number of answers

Birmingham UK 17/03/2016 TSO 9

San Donato World 14/04/2016 Master students 12

Sogndal NO 03/05/2016 Local Stakeholders 5

Schwäbisch Gmünd DE 05/07/2016 Local Stakeholders 5

Berlin EU 11/10/2016 TSO 12

At the end of the session, a questionnaire was distributed to the participants, asking them to express

their degree of agreement to a fixed set of propositions according to a Likert scale from 1 (strongly

disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). In the following table, average scores of the five workshops are

compared and the minimum and maximum scores for each question is highlighted.


In order to investigate the statistical significance of the previous results, an appropriate test was

selected. Following directions from Siegel (1956) and Helsel & Hirsch (2002) for comparing

ordered categorical responses, the non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test was chosen.

Table 9: Comparison of the average scores for the use of Web GIS in the different workshops

For each question, the highest score is showed by a blue background, the lowest by a red background; questions in bold

show where answers resulted to be different among places at a confidence level of 0.05.

The possibility to send comments was appreciated most in the Berlin workshop and less in the

Birmingham Workshop; it is interesting to note that in both workshops attendees were mostly TSO

representatives. As well, the use of Web GIS as a tool to elicit people preferences was appreciated

most in the German workshop and less in the Birmingham workshop. Finally, the usefulness of

Web GIS as an engagement tool was valued most in the Norwegian workshop and less, again, in the

Birmingham workshop.

We also tested possible differences in answers between TSO and other kinds of audience. In

general, the differences between the two groups are not statistically significant. The only exception

is question 5 (the usefulness of Web GIS in the elicitation of people preferences) for which the

average score for TSO is 3.37, for non-TSO is 3.86, the p-value is 0.06, so that the difference is

significant at the confidence level of 10 %.

In general, the Web-GIS was appreciated for its functionality of capturing geographic information

data in an easy and fast way. Its use as an effective tool to elicit people preferences and to

implement active participation was discussed in detail and raised some doubts. For this reason, its

usefulness is worth of further investigations and it would be necessary some experience in real case

studies, with the collaboration not only of the proponents but of the permitting authority as well.

Formulation

Berlin Birmingham San Donato Schwäbisch

Gmünd

Sogndal Average

1. I am satisfied with the Web GIS presentation 3.92 3.44 3.75 3.25 4.25 3.73

2. Web GIS makes it easier to access the project

documentation 4.08 3.56 3.83 3.75 3.40 3.79

3. It is valuable the use of Web GIS to make simple

elaborations and to extract customized dat 3.75 3.22 3.75 3.75 4.20 3.69

4. Web-GIS enable the user to submit comments and

suggestions, specifying very precisely the location to

which they refer 4.25 3.44 4.17 3.75 4.00 3.98

5. Web GIS could allow the decision makers to elicit the

preferences of the general public about some aspects 3.80 2.89 3.83 4.00 3.80 3.63

6. Web GIS could contribute to the improvement of

public engagement 4.18 3.22 3.83 3.50 4.20 3.80

Average 4.00 3.30 3.86 3.67 3.98 3.77


5 PROCESSES FOR PUBLIC ENGAGEMENT

The basic assumption underpinning the INSPIRE-Grid project is that there exist a number of

reasons for public opposition to the development of new infrastructure for Europe’s electric power

system. Among others (to be addressed in other chapters), such reasons include the lack of

trustworthiness in the relationships between Transmission System Operators (TSOs), other

stakeholders and the general public, the perception that stakeholder concerns are often neglected by

TSOs, and the lack of tools to facilitate the stakeholder engagement participation process. In order

to address these issues, an analysis of the stakeholder engagement and participation process was

proposed. To achieve this objective four phases have been identified:

1. Development of a theoretical framework to improve the understanding of actors involved in

participation and engagement processes.

2. Stakeholder interaction.

3. Improvement of the theoretical framework

4. Guidelines on the design of the communication and participation processes

In the first phase, a great focus was placed on the different characteristics of transmission projects.

The values and beliefs are the starting points in the framework, but other factors are also included to

make it more applicable to existing transmission projects. From this theoretical framework we

produced a set of preliminary guidelines on the design of the communication and participation

processes.

The outcomes of the previous sub-activity were shared with the stakeholders involved in the

consortium and with external stakeholders who are actively participating in on-going transmission

grid projects. The aims of this interaction were: firstly, to separate important and relevant factors of

the existing consultation and public engagement processes from these, which are not adequate in

terms of better understanding of affected stakeholders. Secondly, the close cooperation with the

engaged TSOs to enable a regular feedback loop.

This feedback helped significantly in designing the interaction with stakeholders involved in three

different INSPIRE-Grid case studies. It should be mentioned that in the realization of this activity,

we involved not only partners and observers engaged in the INSPIRE-Grid consortium, but also

different national TSOs realizing projects “on the ground”, as well as actors directly affected by

transmission lines development projects in INSPIRE-Grid case studies.

After having analysed the findings of the INSPIRE-Grid case studies in Norway and France (see

chapter 6), an improved version of the theoretical framework was developed. However, insights

from the preliminary framework were not dismissed, they were amended with additional factors, so

both frameworks are seen as complementary. The improved framework focusses on attitude

formation as an important precondition for behaviour and introduces two new concepts, namely

trust and social capital, which are discussed in the context of stakeholder engagement processes.

The last sub-activity aimed at translating the theoretical insights and empirical findings of previous

chapters into practical recommendations of what this means for the design of the permission process

and its public engagement parts. The final version of the guidelines was produced, incorporating the

broad perspective on informal aspects of the engagement process. As emphasized in the theoretical

framework, these are “soft factors” like trust or interpersonal justice. The updated guidelines

underline the key role of project managers and how they can build trustful relationships with and

among affected stakeholders.


The synthesis of these theoretical insights and empirical outcomes results in a comprehensive

checklist for the design of the participation process, incorporating both general and project-specific

factors and includes recommendations on when to use the various tools and methodologies.

Analogously, the factors previously identified were put into a logical structure, allowing for a

reduction of the complexity throughout the engagement process and providing a clear structure for

the selection of tools, which can be used as a guide for project developers. In addition, a second

model was developed in order to address the temporal aspects of the decision-making process,

rather than trying to represent all aspects in one model. Thus, a functional dynamic model for

stakeholder engagement was created, to show when in the transmission development process the

various engagement tools and methods should be applied. In contrast, the decision tree does not

include a temporal aspect and focuses on audience size and resource availability. Based on the

empirical findings from the three INSPIRE-Grid case studies, both models were adequately

updated. The two models are designed to be used together in order to assist the leaders of

transmission development projects to better understand which tools to use and when.

5.1 Development of a theoretical framework

A theoretical framework was developed in order to better understand stakeholders’ attitudes toward

the construction of new transmission lines. Given the large number of factors that have the potential

to influence attitudes to new transmission lines, the framework was created to help in guiding

through the analysis of public attitudes towards grid expansion. The framework consists of nine

groups of characteristics, which can be further condensed into two overarching categories – project

characteristics (purpose, scale, landscape and stakeholders) and stakeholder characteristics (past

local experience, concerns, societal values and energy system values) – and a third cross-cutting

category which describes the project phase.

Purpose

Understanding the purpose of the project is important as it determines a context within which the

project can be presented to stakeholders. There exist many different reasons why new transmission

lines are needed and not all may experience the same level of public support. Indeed, perception of

the need for new transmission capacity can itself depend on individual stakeholder’s visions of what

the power system should look like in the future. The line might be needed to improve system

stability, increase the security of supply, or for the import or export of electricity. Another factor

that can result in a substantial difference in the level of support is the generation source of the

electricity – whether the energy is produced from renewable or non-renewable sources and whether

the source is centralised or decentralised. Each of these reasons requires a different explanation and

message to be communicated to stakeholders and these messages will likely be received differently

by different stakeholder groups. Lastly, it can be expected that there will be a difference in public

attitudes toward the construction of a new line or the upgrade of an existing line. Stakeholders

affected by new lines may not be used to the visual impact of a line. In contrast, where a line is

being upgraded, the stakeholders will likely be more familiar with transmission lines. Such

familiarity has the potential to either increase or decrease support for a new line, depending on past

experiences (this point is addressed further below).

Scale

The scale, or size, of a project also has ramifications for the stakeholder engagement process. The

larger the project, the greater the potential variation in the types of landscape and stakeholders the

project will impact. Furthermore, the legal and institutional frameworks within which the project is

situated will also depend on the scale of the project. For the purposes of this framework, three

physical scales have been identified: local, national and international. Local projects directly impact


the smallest number of people and can include such projects as a line upgrade between two existing

substations or the connection to the grid of a new generation facility, such as a wind farm. National

projects are defined here as those that transect a significant proportion of the country and impact a

number of localities. International projects add a further layer of complexity in terms of engaging

stakeholders in multiple countries with varying legal and institutional frameworks. For example,

Projects of Common Interest (PCIs), introduced by the European Commission, are characterized by

specific administrative requirements relating to the timescale of the permitting process,

environmental assessment procedures and public consultation.

Landscape

Perhaps, the primary distinction in terms of the type of landscape that a transmission project affects

is between rural and urban areas. These landscape types can then be further broken down into more

specific descriptors. Looking at each of these areas in turn, there is a range of landscape types that

can be described as rural. These include undeveloped areas such as national, state and local parks

and forests, areas designated for habitat protection, areas protected for their landscape and cultural

value as well as managed agricultural land. Each of these landscape types will involve different

stakeholders with different concerns and issues. Similarly, areas classified as urban fall into

different subcategories. Residential and industrial areas will involve different stakeholder groups

and with varying levels of sensitivity to the potential impacts of a new transmission line. While

there exists a certain amount of subjectivity with regards to perceptions of landscape impacts of

transmission lines, it is important not to simply dismiss such perceptions, as people can have strong

emotional attachments to specific places. Project developers often have a tendency to dismiss

objections that are deemed to be subjective and emotional and instead focus the debate on ‘rational’

choice.

Stakeholders

The list of stakeholders involved in the development of a new transmission line will vary from

project to project. There will, of course, be a core group of stakeholders common to all projects.

The involvement of additional stakeholders will depend on the other project characteristics outlined

in this framework. It is well understood that early involvement of stakeholders is extremely helpful

in generating a constructive and trustful atmosphere among the various stakeholder groups, but

stakeholder identification can present a challenge if the potential project corridors have yet to be

identified. Nineteen stakeholder groups are included in the framework: TSOs; European

institutions; national/regional policy makers; environmental NGOs; regulators; permitting

authorities; power producers; industrial consumers; private consumers; local elected officials;

private land owners; municipal landowners; statutory land owners; land users; local citizens’

initiatives; experts/academia; and the media. This list includes a higher number of stakeholders in

comparison to the work described in chapter 2, due to the different research approach: stakeholder

analysis (used in chapter 2) is a specific tool, which reduces the potential complexity of the reality

as described in the theoretical framework, developed in the present chapter.

Past local experience

In addition to the four project-related characteristics, the framework includes four stakeholder

characteristics. The first of these is past local experience. Whether or not a stakeholder group has

had previous experience of large scale development projects should affect the design of the

engagement process. This is particularly true for local stakeholders where familiarity with such

projects can range from a relatively high level to zero. At the local level, past experiences can affect

both overall attitudes towards the project process and the actors involved – either positively or

negatively. If a community has had experience with a prior project then it is important to consider


not only the development of the project itself, but also the aftermath of the project. Were predictions

made that did not come to fruition? Were promises made and not kept? Did a prior project divide a

community and create an ongoing conflict? All of these issues can colour how a local community

might view both, a new project, the planning institution and TSO and the other stakeholders.

Furthermore, past experience can affect the level of expectation that might exist among a local

community. If the community benefited in some manner from the previous project, either through

compensation or other community benefits, then it is likely that questions concerning the

endowment of community benefits will be raised early in the engagement process.

Concerns

Two types of concern can be imagined: process concerns and project-specific concerns. The former

can be thought of as relating to issues such as the overall fairness of the process, whether any court

proceedings are required, and whether the project may be delayed or abandoned. On the other hand,

project-specific concerns vary more from project to project and, due to their nature, are likely to

primarily concern local stakeholders (although national organisations may also be involved).

Although it should be noted that some of these local concerns will likely apply to most projects,

from the perspective of the framework this distinction is useful as it reduces the list of concerns,

which are likely to differ from case to case (i.e. the project-specific concerns). Based on the

literature, five project-specific concerns are identified: electromagnetic fields (EMF); landscape

impacts such as visual disamenity, cultural heritage and recreation; reduction in property values;

safety issues; and environmental or ecological impacts.

Societal values

There is a strong link between the above-mentioned concerns and societal values, since people are

likely to be the most concerned about something they value. Existing research has identified a

number of values that people commonly hold and, while not all of these values are relevant for

transmission development, it is possible to see how the impacts of a grid extension could impact a

number of societal values. For example, the visual aspects of a transmission line could influence

values such as happiness, inner harmony, equality, pleasure, and a world of beauty. The potential

effects of EMF could impact values of equality and family security. It is possible, then, to see how

some of these values might underpin attitudes toward new transmission lines. If a person felt its

own happiness, freedom, or family security would be threatened by the development of a new

transmission project, then it follows that he or she might be more likely to oppose the transmission

line. Similarly, if a person highly values a world of beauty, then he or she might be more inclined to

object to new lines due to aesthetic reasons. On the other hand, values such as national security and

a comfortable life might lead a person to being more likely to support grid expansion, if the person

felt that new transmission lines would improve the reliability and security of the power grid. It is

worth noting, however, that specific values are not always held to be of equal importance by

individuals – some may be deemed to be of greater importance than others. Thus, even though

multiple values may affect a person’s opinion of a new transmission line, it may be the case that a

smaller subset of those values – or even a single one – may play a dominant role in that person’s

attitude formation.

Energy system values

In addition to the societal values, people can also hold values that relate specifically to the energy

system. A study conducted by the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) (Parkhill et al. 2013) into

public values, attitudes and acceptability of transforming the UK energy system provides useful

insights in terms of general public preferences regarding the energy system. The UKERC study

reported a strong desire to move away from fossil fuels over the next few decades and a comparable


desire to increase efficiency and incorporate more renewables into the system. Fifteen energy

system values were identified in the UKERC study: avoiding waste; efficiency; capturing

opportunities; environmental protection; nature and naturalness; availability and affordability;

safety; autonomy and freedom; choice and control; social justice; fairness, honesty and

transparency; long-term trajectories; interconnected; and improvement and quality. Taking into

account the societal and energy system values could have ramifications for the stakeholder

engagement process and considering this broader value framework that society has adopted could

guarantee public support for grid expansion.

Project phase

Lastly, the phase of the project influences stakeholder attitudes in two ways. First, the project phase

determines which stakeholders are likely to have an interest in the project and second, the phase sets

boundaries regarding the potential level of stakeholder input. Unfortunately, these two factors are

negatively correlated – as clarity is obtained regarding which stakeholders to include in the

decision-making process, so the level of influence stakeholders have in the process, decreases.

Furthermore, in addition to issues with identifying stakeholders, the fact that the exact siting of the

transmission line is not known in the early stages of the project development also hinders

stakeholder engagement, as the stakeholders themselves might not yet be concerned about the

project. In other words, as long as the project is not precisely defined (for instance, in a ten-year

national development plan), it can be difficult for stakeholders to foresee how their interests and

values could be at stake in the future. This, in turn, might limit their interest in the project and their

willingness to be involved in the early stages of its development. The framework utilises the six

project phases identified by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants (2014): determination of the need;

project preparation; spatial planning; permitting; construction; and operation.

This framework can be visualized in the following way:

Figure 16: The visualization of the Stakeholder Attitude Framework (for details, see D5.1)


5.2 Stakeholder interaction

The stakeholder interaction was carried out in the three case studies that will be described in detail

in the next chapter. In order to prepare a common approach for the upcoming fieldworks, an online

document “Preparation of the interactions with stakeholders in the three INSPIRE-Grid case

studies” has been prepared and then constantly improved and updated. It enabled to systematically

review the methods of data collection and preparation of the next fieldworks’ designs.

The first case study to be taken into consideration was the Bamble-Rød case study. The preparation

of the fieldwork started in January 2015 and lasted several months; it consisted of an intensive

exchange of documents and correspondence, and a couple of meetings to discuss the organizational

issues in person. The fieldwork in the Bamble-Rød took place between 8-10th

of June 2015 and

altogether eleven stakeholders affected by the project participated in the interaction with INSPIRE-

Grid researchers. It took the form of individual meetings (however in one interaction a couple

participated), during which stakeholders were interviewed and asked to carry out a “ranking

exercise” related to the MCA.

The preparation of the two remaining fieldworks in the Aurland-Sogndal and the Cergy Persan case

studies started in September 2015 and lasted for several months, too. The dates of the interaction

with stakeholders have been postponed several times, because of the delays in the administrative

procedures in both cases. Eventually, the extensive exchange and coordination of the work between

engaged partners resulted in the completed interaction with stakeholders in the Aurland-Sogndal

case study, which took place between 3rd

and 4th

of May, 2016. This time a workshop was

organised, during which two methodologies (MCA and Web GIS) were tested and it was followed

up with semi-structured interviews. Altogether eight stakeholders affected by the project were

involved in this interaction (seven during the workshop and one interviewed the day after). The

general structure of the interaction with stakeholders in the Aurland-Sogndal case study is presented

below.

Table 10: The schematic structure of the workshop in the Aurland-Sogndal case study during the

second interaction with stakeholders

Workshop in the Aurland-Sogndal case study

Part of the workshop Issues to clarify / comments Duration

0. Internal meeting of IG staff-

members

1. Introduction to the workshop

Who we are?

Who are the stakeholders?

Why we are here?

What are we going to discuss?

What do we expect?

Presentation of the workshop’s structure.

Making a clear distinction between the workshop and

the official public consultation process.

Making a clear note that we are going to use two

different participatory tools, plus additional personal

interviews after the workshop/on next day.

Underlying the fact that stakeholders can always ask

to clarify some issues.

10 min


2. Introduction to the case study max. 10 min

3. Web GIS illustration

Presentation to make the attendees able to use the tool (10

min).

Experimentation of the Web GIS by participants (15 min).

The distribution of the questionnaire (10 min).

35 min

4. Introduction to the MCA

“ranking exercise” 10 min

5.

Each stakeholder will carry out

“the ranking exercise”

individually

Simultaneous carrying out “the ranking exercise”.

Limited guidance – explanation what is expected to do.

The distribution of the questionnaire.

15 min

6. Coffee break 15 min

7.

“The ranking exercise” carried

out collectively by stakeholders

&

The group discussion on criteria

ranked by different stakeholders

The division of participants into two groups in order to

carry out “the ranking exercise” together.

The group discussion on results.

45 min

8. Collecting the information on

“the collective ranking exercise” A presentation of internal discussions’ synthesis. 10 min

9. Semi-structure interviews with

some of stakeholders

20-30 min

(each)

The last interaction with stakeholders, in the Cergy-Persan case study, was preceded with an

internal meeting of RTE experts on public participation on 8th

of March 2016 in Paris, who

discussed the usefulness and the relevance of the LCA methodology. The insights gathered during

this meeting were used afterwards in the preparation of the design for the fieldwork in France. The

interaction with stakeholders itself was carried out on the 13th

of September 2016. It also had the

form of a half-day workshop which comprised a presentation of the LCA results, a “ranking

exercise” combining the global and the local impacts of the grid extension and focus groups

dedicated to discuss the LCA results. Furthermore semi-structured interviews were conducted.

Altogether six stakeholders affected by the project were involved in this interaction. The general

structure of the interaction with stakeholders in the Cergy-Persan case study is presented below.

Table 11: The schematic structure of the workshop in the Cergy-Persan case study during the third

interaction with stakeholders

Sequence (duration) Document implemented or points

to be raised Other questions/key points

1.

9:00

Introduction

(10 min)

Power Point about the INSPIRE Grid

project in French

+ agenda, rules/ instructions of the

sequence (if relevant), contributions

of RTE-ARMINES-PIK in this

workshop

+ introduction round (each

stakeholder should say who she/he is

+ short presentation of participants

Emphasis put on the scientific character of

the fieldwork and the importance to get

feedbacks

(polite way, so the stakeholders wouldn't

get an impression to be "experimental

rabbits")


from the IG)

2.

9:10

Case study project

presentation I

(together 25 min)

step 1 (10-15 min)

step 2a (10 min)

Presentation in French

step 1

step 2a

step 1 – in order to contextualize the

workshop

step 2a – the LCA presentation

3.

9:35

Questions from

participants (10 min)

Sequence recorded

(just few minutes before or at the

beginning of the WS)

4.

9:45

Case study project

presentation II (15 min)

Presentation in French

step 2b

step 2b

5.

10:00

Questions from

participants

(15 min)

Questions should address the results of the

LCA and the possible clarification of the

data

Sequence recorded

6.

10:15

Coffee break

(15 min)

7.

10:30

FOCUS Group – “the

ranking exercise” carried

out individually (5 min)

Discussion in French (15

min)

Rules of the ranking exercise

Distribution of questionnaires (in

order to collect the results of “the

ranking exercise”)

Collect the questionnaire

Sequence recorded

8/9.

10:50

FOCUS Group – LCA

usefulness

Discussions in French

(30 min)

LCA questions

(in context of its relevance,

usefulness and importance)

Sequence recorded

Stakeholders will be divided in two groups

Split the room into 4 spaces (1 for the

focus group and 3 for interviews)

8/9.

Semi-structured

interviews

in English with

consecutive translation

into French in parallel to

the focus group

(app. 30 min per

interview)

Sequence(s) recorded

Split the room into 4 spaces (1 for the

focus group and 3 for interviews).

While conducting interviews, stakeholders

will be informed that their answers remain

confidential, anonymized and they will

serve only for the scientific purpose.

After the group discussion and interviews,

participants will change their tasks:

stakeholders who participated in the group

discussion will be interviewed and these,

which were interviewed, will participate in

the group discussion on the LCA.

10.

11:20

Closing of the workshop

(10 min)

11:30 (end of the official

part)

Acknowledgments to stakeholders

that they participated in the workshop

Collect the questionnaire

11. Lunch (12:30)


In addition, the initial results of the interaction with stakeholders were presented during the 2nd

INSPIRE-Grid General Assembly in Zürich, on November 26th

2015, gathering insights and

valuable feedback from its participants. These results were confronted with the outcome of the

BESTGRID project carried out by another consortium partner, RGI, in order to look for potential

overlaps. The findings derived from the data gathered during the three interactions with

stakeholders were presented during the 3rd

INSPIRE-Grid General Assembly in Berlin, on October

10th

2016 and during the workshop with European TSOs that followed the day after. The

presentation of the results enabled us to have a feedback loop with practitioners, whose comments

and remarks complemented the collected data and allowed us to complete this activity.

5.3 Improving the framework

The realization of the previous activity revealed that the developed theoretical framework is

insufficient for the understanding of actors involved in participation and engagement processes.

Although it provided a comprehensive description of elements consisting to project characteristics

and stakeholder characteristics (plus: a project phase), a revision of underlying assumptions was

needed. Inspired by the interaction with stakeholders during the fieldwork in Norway and France a

second extensive literature review was carried out: on the issues of acceptance of new technologies,

development of energy infrastructure (renewables as well as power lines), participation processes,

management of resources, land use planning, governance and organizational and administrational

structures. That enabled the creation of a complementary theoretical framework, which concentrates

on informal aspects influencing public acceptance of the grid extension. It helps to explain better

the relation between values (what was the starting point of INSPIRE-Grid theoretical

considerations) and attitudes that stakeholders present towards transmission lines. Moreover, it

incorporates insights derived from other project activities (particularly chapter 2).

There is not enough space in this report to explain in detail all elements of this framework (for

details, see D5.4). Therefore its simplified version is proposed, which extracts only the primary

components influencing stakeholders’ attitudes: concerns, needs, values, distributive fairness,

procedural fairness and trust with its three dimensions: trust in public institutions, generalized trust

and interpersonal trust. This simplified version is presented below.

Figure 17: The simplified version of the improved stakeholders’ attitude framework


The values as well as distributive fairness and procedural fairness, have been addressed

comprehensively in the work of chapter 2 (D2.3) and chapter 5 (points 3.2.3 and 3.2.4 described in

Deliverable 5.1). The aspect of trust was not acknowledged sufficiently in the earlier work,

therefore this theoretical framework shifted the focus to the trust-issue.

Trust is understood as a complex, multi-dimensional concept, which can be interpreted also as an

elusive phenomenon. There is no common definition of trust and the way it should be measured.

Here the following definition was adopted: “a psychological state comprising the intention to accept

vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behavior of another” (Rousseau

et al. 1998: 395). Trust is reciprocal and it is characterized by a positive feedback loop: when the

trustor trusts the trustee, the latter is encouraged to be trustworthy. It is also asymmetrical – building

and maintaining trust is a difficult and long-term undertaking, but it can be destroyed fast and

easily.

In grid planning participation processes, three dimensions of trust are important: 1) trust in

institutions, 2) trust in society and 3) interpersonal trust.

1) Institutional trust is needed to lower conflicts in the early phases of the projects. When

stakeholders have the impression the regulator and the TSO are legitimized by democratic control

and are acting for the public good or there are sufficient democratic possibilities to influence the

direction of energy policy, the engagement process for a specific project is less likely to become an

arena for competing visions of the energy system.

2) General trust in society is seen to be crucial especially for the willingness of affected people to

support the idea of the “public good” – understood as wealth, security of electricity supply or

climate protection. The subjective importance of the “public good” increases the motivation of

stakeholders to desist from their own interests in the name of the collective interest.

3) However, the most important form of trust in the grid planning context is interpersonal trust,

developed mainly between the project manager and stakeholders.

The data gathered during the interaction with stakeholders in the three case studies in Norway and

France showed that if stakeholders do not have a huge trust in institutions or general trust in society,

a trustful relationship with the project manager can partially (but of course not necessarily)

compensate it. Moreover, building trust relations between stakeholders can minimise the feeling of

asymmetrical power relations between them and a TSO that has usually more information and

resources. In consequence, it can turn a formerly negative impression of the company into

something positive. If stakeholders do not feel that they are taken seriously and treated as equal

partners, if the project manager does not work in a transparent and reliable way, or if

communication cultures differ widely between involved actors, mistrust might arise and hamper a

good, acceptable participation process. Of course, trust is a complex and long-term endeavour and a

lot of factors should be taken into account, but the focus on trust enables to emphasize the role a

project manager plays.

It should be noted that both presented theoretical frameworks are not exclusive, but rather

complementary. Elements included in the first version of the theoretical frameworks are reflected in

many aspects of variables used in the second one, for example concerns (as general determinants of

values) or the purpose of the project (as the trust into governmental energy policy and a given

legitimacy to it). Therefore both frameworks should serve interested actors in order to understand

stakeholders involved in participation and engagement processes.


5.4 Guidelines on the design of the communication and participation

processes

After having developed the theoretical framework, a set of preliminary guidelines for engaging

stakeholders in transmission development projects was developed. These guidelines comprise five

overarching principles and a ten step process and represent the output of a checklist for the design

of participation processes (section 5.2) and a decision tree to structure the engagement process. The

intent of the handbook is to help guiding TSOs or other leaders of transmission development

projects (for example government agencies) in their interactions with stakeholders. The five

overarching principles are:

Consistency – engagement should be consistent across multiple projects. This does not

necessarily mean that each project will follow the exact same process but rather the overall

approach to engaging stakeholders should be consistent.

Transparency – the entire engagement process needs to be open and transparent. The scope

and objectives of the process should be made clear from the outset along with a timeline and

details of how stakeholders will be consulted and how their input will be considered.

Timeliness – involving stakeholders as early in the process as possible is vital to the success

of the engagement activities. Early involvement of stakeholders is beneficial not only for the

stakeholders themselves but also for the leader of the engagement process.

Proportionality – in addition to being clear about the scope of the process, it is important for

stakeholder engagement to be adequate in the context of the stage of the project. If

stakeholders are asked to provide input to a particular issue then there must be a mechanism

for including that input in the decision making process.

Inclusiveness – the engagement process should include a range of stakeholders as broad as

possible so that the process accurately reflects the views and opinions of those who will be

affected by the project. Particular attention should be paid to include underrepresented

stakeholders who might not otherwise have a voice in the process.

In addition to these five principles, it is important to keep in mind the project context. There is no

single correct way of undertaking a stakeholder engagement process as each project will present

different opportunities and challenges and, due to its inherent nature, stakeholder engagement will

always be context-specific.

Moreover, it should be underlined that these principles refer to regulations which determine official

engagement process schemes. As indicated in the improved theoretical framework, beside these

formalized and institutional structures there exists a parallel setting related to informal aspects of

stakeholder participation. This approach refers to cultural aspects of institutions, giving them the

meaning of routines, procedures, conventions, roles, strategies and organizational forms around

which political activity is constructed and the actual rules-in-use on the ground. Thus, informal

participation comprises aspects existing outside of organizational, formalized and institutionalized

contexts and structures (for a detailed overview see Deliverable 5.4). While insights from

stakeholders gathered in the Norwegian and French case studies confirm the validity of these five

principles, we found out that they actually contribute to render the stakeholder engagement process

trustworthy. These conclusions are also backed by other empirical findings, which identify trust as

individual features of actors responsible for carrying out the decision-making and participation


process, as well as the characteristics of the process itself (Höppner 2009). However, the role of

formal settings should not be underestimated, because informal participation could not exist without

a formal decision-making process that establishes a framework for a formal participation in the first

place. Therefore, formal structures can introduce regulations that could make official engagement

processes consistent, transparent, adequately timed, proportional and inclusive, but they should be

complemented with face-to-face interaction with the project manager, or another person who is

responsible for engagement and trust-building activities carried out by her or him, what will

contribute to a trustworthy process. The relation between five overreaching principles and

trustworthiness is depicted below.

Figure 18: The relation between principles guiding the structuring of engagement process

and trustworthiness

The second part of the guidelines describes ten steps to help organizing the engagement process. It

should not be interpreted as a panacea for organizing the engagement process. The intent is not to

provide a ‘cookie-cutter’ or a ‘tick-box’ approach to stakeholder engagement. Instead, the

guidelines should be seen as general principles that require tailoring to the project in question. With

this in mind, the guidelines comprise following steps:

1. Identify stakeholders – both individual stakeholders and stakeholder groups, along with

individual representatives of those groups, should be identified and their roles and positions

understood.

2. Map stakeholders – stakeholders should be mapped according to defined criteria. Given the

impact of power lines on nearby communities, it is important to include the typically hard to

reach stakeholders.

3. Define key issues – a number of key issues, which stakeholders are concerned about, were

identified in the Theoretical Framework. Although many, if not all, of these issues will be at

stake in most new transmission projects, the relative levels of concern about each issue will

likely vary, depending on the characteristics of the proposed line and the make-up of the

stakeholder group.


4. Understand stakeholder values – while there are likely to exist competing values, to the

greatest extent possible, the project should be placed in the context of the overall societal

value system. Values to be considered can range from the nature of the energy system

(avoiding waste, reliability, long-term trajectories) to process criteria (fairness, honesty and

transparency) via more general concepts about rights (autonomy and freedom, choice and

control) and the environment (environmental protection, nature and naturalness).

5. Determine the engagement level – four levels of engagement are specified: information

provision, consultation, co-decision and empowerment. While it is accepted that it is not

always feasible to grant stakeholder full empowerment rights when it comes to transmission

development, TSOs are encouraged to involve stakeholders in the decision making process

to the greatest extent possible.

6. Select assessment methods and engagement tools – when undertaking stakeholder

engagement it is important to know which tools to use and when to use them. The models

outlined below represent a first attempt at a framework to help with these decisions.

7. Draft the engagement plan – the engagement plan should document the engagement process

and be available to all stakeholders. It is suggested that, at a minimum, the plan should

cover: the mandate for the engagement; the purpose and scope of the engagement; the

owners of the engagement, their roles and responsibilities; the methodology for and results

from identifying stakeholders; the methodology for and results from profiling and mapping

stakeholders; the pre-engagement activities; the engagement level(s) and methods; and the

boundaries of disclosure.

8. Prepare for engagement – stakeholder engagement is an involved, time-consuming process

and resources are required for both the engagement process and to incorporate any changes

to the project that might arise out of it.

9. Implement the engagement plan – it is important that stakeholders have access to all the

required information and that the information is understandable to the stakeholders. The

engagement process should be adequately documented and received feedback needs to be

addressed.

10. Review the engagement process – both the quality and the effect of the engagement process

should be reviewed. Activities found to be wanting should be identified and steps should be

taken to improve performance in these areas. Results of the process should be reported to

stakeholders, the wider public, as well as internally with the organisation leading the

process.

Based on the empirical data generated during the analysis carried out in Work Packages 2, 4, 5, 6

and 7, especially with the results of the fieldwork as well as with insights from secondary literature

and through constant exchanges with all INSPIRE-Grid partners, all these steps have been

complemented with practical examples of process improvements and trust-building activities. These

activities have been described in detail in Deliverable 5.3 and should serve especially project

managers in carrying out successful and trustworthy engagement processes.


Additionally, apart from scientific conclusions and practical trust-building actions, it should be

noted that a TSO as a company is a stakeholder as well and as long as the overall approach of this

actor towards stakeholder engagement will not change, a single project manager will not be able to

change the whole process only by herself/himself. The overall company’s approach concerns the

structure of a TSO, overlaps with communication and public relations divisions, direct access of

project managers to the executive board or relevant seminars or workshops for other (mostly

technical) employees, who create an outside image of the company too.

It should be mentioned that proposed measures would probably not provide a general acceptability

of grid extension projects and satisfaction from the engagement process in all possible cases among

all possible stakeholders. There can always be actors who can complain or be critical on certain

issues. However, trust-building activities can definitely reduce perceived power imbalances

between involved stakeholders and a TSO, decrease conflicts potential, facilitate the dialog between

opposing visions of the energy system and contribute to constructive solutions and social

innovations.

To support the application of the guidelines, two models were created. The first of these is a

decision tree , intended to assist the person responsible for the engagement process in choosing

which engagement tools to use. Four categories of tools are identified that match the engagement

levels identified in Step 5 of the engagement process (information provision, consultation, co-

decision making and empowerment). The categories are organised according to the size of the

intended audience (small, medium, large) and the amount of resources required to implement the

tool (low, medium, high).

Figure 19: Decision tree for selecting engagement tools


In the decision tree, resources can be understood as a combination of money, time and capacity. The

different tools will require differing amounts of each resource, some tools are relatively

straightforward to implement but can be very time consuming (e.g. doorstep visits), others require a

significant financial expenditure (e.g. public opinion surveys) and other require specific expertise

(e.g. facilitation for focus groups, workshops etc.). Many require a combination of two, if not all

three, of the resources – for example, running a local project office for a few months is both time

consuming and potentially costly as dedicated staff time will needed to implement the tool

effectively.

It is important to remember that simply because such a variety of tools exists, this does not mean

that all, or even most, of them need to be implemented in any one project. Furthermore, due to the

nature of the transmission siting process, it will not be desirable, or even possible, to use certain

tools at certain times. With this in mind, a second, functional-dynamic, model was developed to be

used in tandem with the decision tree. This second model incorporates the various project phases

and is a first attempt at suggesting, which tools might be most appropriate at different points in the

planning process.

Figure 20: Functional dynamic model for stakeholder engagement

The work undertaken throughout the interaction with stakeholders and validation workshops (the

latter will be described in Chapter 7), revealed that the functional dynamic model should be

substantially improved. The biggest change introduced as a response to the analysis was the

inclusion of an additional stage to the model, namely the “energy strategy” stage. This stage, unlike

the rest, is not project specific, but refers to broadly understood visions, directions and impacts of


the overall energy policy and energy system development. At the energy strategy stage a broad

societal debate is proposed as a mean to stimulate a public discussion about the energy system and

its impacts in the future. It should enhance the highest possible number of actors coming from

different circles (supranational institutions, parliament, media, political parties, trade unions,

associations, science etc.) and it should concentrate on visions and directions of the energy policy in

the future. Grid extension projects are to a large extent responses and consequences of decisions

about the energy (electricity) system. On the one hand, the need to expand power lines can result

from the development of decentralized energy sources (like RES) or from the development and

introduction of the common European electricity market. On the other hand, the need of their

expansion could be made unnecessary by the implementation of huge energy efficiency measures

and the reduction of electricity consumption. Such a societal debate should be facilitated in media

including the participation of diverse actors. It could bring more understanding about the challenges

of investing in the energy infrastructure in the future and, ideally, more clarity about the direction in

which a coherent energy strategy should head. As a consequence, a broad discussion on the above-

mentioned elements could determine the policy formulation stage in the policy-making process and

it could make decision-making processes on specific power lines projects more legitimate.

Moreover, an open social debate involving policy-makers could be interpreted as inclusive and

transparent and thereby increase stocks of trust to public institutions and government.

Other changes implemented in the model concerned the shift of MCA from the empowerment level

to the co-decision making, the addition of social media and newspapers among engagement tools at

the level of information provision and the deletion of closed door meetings, since they could lead to

non-transparent process. The modified functional dynamic model for stakeholder engagement is

depicted below.


Figure 21: Functional dynamic model for stakeholder engagement, tailored to standard steps of

procedures for power line planning and the results of the interaction with stakeholders

and validation workshops

The part of the INSPIRE-Grid project dedicated to processes for public engagement followed two

parallel approaches: a theoretical and a practical one. The latter focused on empirical findings

generated throughout the interaction with stakeholders, implementation of methodologies in case

studies, validation workshops and constant exchanges among project partners. The results achieved

by all these activities not only contributes to the existing literature on public participation in grid

extension projects, but also highlighted the central role of the human factor in engagement and

decision-making processes emphasizing the role of values and trust-issues.


6 CASE STUDIES

The development of real case studies is at the very core of the INSPIRE-Grid project. As tests of the

selected methodologies (Life-Cycle Analysis (LCA), Multicriteria Analysis (MCA), and Web GIS),

case studies aim to both feed and validate the theoretical research works conducted in the project.

This is particularly true for the activity described in the previous chapter, whose handbook of

guidelines and decision tree are expected to fully integrate the content and results of the

experimentations. Conversely, the first results of the theoretical developments are expected to feed

the experimentations that will be conducted in the case studies, particularly when framing the

stakeholder engagement process and the decision-making one.

Choosing properly the case studies constituted a major step in the INSPIRE-Grid project,

considering the role they will play in the definition of the project’s final results. For this reason, it

was of utmost importance to identify TSOs’ projects whose field conditions could favour

productive experimentations of the LCA, MCA and Web GIS methodologies. This selection process

implied a strong coordination between different activities and different INSPIRE-Grid partners. The

first challenge of the development of case studies consisted in making progressively converge the

concrete needs of the TSOs’ project managers with the research contributions coming from the

theoretical activities.

6.1 Methodology development for the case studies.

Within the project context, there was a clear need to ensure that all the case studies would be

studied using the same methods, so that relevant and robust conclusions could be drawn at the end

of the project. In other words, it was necessary to build a research protocol that could frame the

implementation of the INSPIRE-Grid case studies and enable comparisons between their results

despite the specific characteristics of each case study (regarding the TSO’s project that hosts the

case study and its context as well as the assessment tool experimented).

In order to define the vocabulary and the concepts used in the INSPIRE-Grid project, we considered

useful, and even necessary, to agree upon a common language and, for this purpose, a glossary was

created by RTE and PIK, with the support of the other partners. This glossary (see for details D6.1)

defines theoretical (e.g. acceptance, engagement, participation) as well as technical terms (e.g.

tools, methodologies, case study) and was used throughout the development of the case studies.

At the same time, the design was developed in order to provide background information about the

case studies and a preliminary framework to be implemented during the field activities. The

possible case studies in France and Norway were collected and an outline of possible stakeholder

engagement tools and assessment methods was produced.

6.2 Selection of case studies.

In order to select in a transparent way the three INSPIRE-Grid case studies, two main documents

was produced:

The template for the selection of the case studies: this template, distributed both to the

INSPIRE-Grid partners and involved TSOs, aimed to define expectations and needs

regarding the future case studies.

A document, devoted to TSOs’ project managers, which described the assessment tools

to be experimented in the case studies. The purpose of this document was to explain in


details the objectives and the organization of the future case studies, and to get comments

and suggestions from the project managers.

The results of this activity allowed us to select the most appropriate TSOs’ projects, basing on

the following general criteria:

Geographical criteria: case studies should be chosen in different countries and/or

regions, in order to be representative at the European scale.

Temporal criteria: case studies have to be representative of different phases of decision

process

Technical criteria: the projects to be considered should consist of HV grid (e.g. 220 –

400 kV); particular attention should be given to inter-connection projects and to the need

of integrating renewable energy generation.

Of course, in the selection of case studies, great attention was given to some practical aspects, such

as the necessity not to interfere with the formal permitting procedure and the coherence of the

timings of the case study and of the INSPIRE-Grid project.

Figure 22: Localization of the selected case studies

The selected case studies were deeply analysed and one or two assessment methodologies among

those proposed were selected to be tested on each of them, in accordance with the characteristics of

the projects. The evaluation of the methodologies experimented, regarding particularly how they

contribute to stakeholder engagement, was based on interactions with projects’ stakeholders. As a

consequence, it was of utmost importance to select projects whose contexts could favour productive

relations between researchers and stakeholders without hindering the achievement of TSOs’


projects. As for the methodologies to be experimented, they had to be innovative enough to have a

clear added-value regarding stakeholder engagement in comparison with TSOs’ current

participation practices, both mandatory and voluntary. Considering how complex the identification

and analysis of these current practices can be, TSOs have provided researchers with relevant

information throughout the selection process. To realize this convergence, TSOs and researchers

have been engaged in many discussions.

In brief, the main difficulty in the selection process was to identify TSOs’ projects that could

possibly host, in accordance with the aforementioned conditions, the experimentation of the

methodologies proposed by the INSPIRE-Grid research team.

As a result of this selection process, three case studies have been chosen and preliminary

instructions were developed in order to make easier the implementation of the methodologies to be

experimented, data collection, interactions with stakeholders and the timing of the fieldwork. In the

following table, the main characteristics of the three case studies are summarized.


Table 12: Summarized description of the three case studies

6.3 Implementation of methodologies in case studies.

Being representatives of different aspects of the permitting process, some relevant differences can

be observed among the three case studies, which, in some way, limited the comparability of the

results produced:

- The diversity of the contexts of the TSOs’ projects that had been chosen for hosting the case

studies (the Bamble-Rød power line was in operation when the fieldwork took place; the

Aurland-Sogndal project just had been subjected to public hearings; the Cergy-Persan was

also in its permitting phase): these differences regarding projects’ schedules had an influence

on the organization of the fieldworks and the possibility to interact with stakeholders.

- The diversity of projects’ technical natures (the Aurland-Sogndal project consisted in

building new 420 kV power line; the Bamble-Rød in building a new 420 kV power line to

replace an existing 300 kV line; and the Cergy-Persan in upgrading to 400 kV an existing

225 kV line): The diversity of the technical natures of the projects had an influence on the

implementation and purposes of the methodologies experimented.

Case study 1 Case study 2 Case study 3

Name Cergy-Persan Bamble-Rød Aurland-Sogndal

TSO RTE Statnett Statnett

General criteria

Localization France (Ile-de-France) Southern Norway Central Norway

Status of the project Ongoing Closed Ongoing

Temporal phase In its permitting phase when

the fieldwork was realized

In operation phase when the

fieldwork was realized

In its permitting phase when

the fieldwork was realized

Technical characteristics Project upgrade to 400 kV of

an existing 20 km 225 kV line.

New 34 km 420 kV power line

(replacing an existing 300 kV

line).

New 420 kV power line.

Description of the methodologies experimented

Methodology Life-cycle analysis (LCA) Multi-criteria analysis (MCA) Multi-criteria analysis (MCA)

and Web GIS tool

Objective in the case

study

To improve the evaluation of

the environmental impacts

and benefits deriving from

TSOs’ projects.

To collect the necessary data

to define the set of indicators

and weights needed to conduct

an MCA in TSOs’ projects.

To feed the decision-making

process regarding the siting of

the power line by comparing

alternatives on the basis of

stakeholders’ preferences.

Added-value for

stakeholder engagement

in the case study

To provide additional

information to support the

decision-making process

(used for instance for direct

communication with the

public).

To discuss with stakeholders

the solution that was chosen,

and to question how it is in line

with their preferences in

matters of power grid

development.

To involve stakeholders in the

decision-making process by

giving them the opportunity to

express their preferences and

to contribute to the siting

decision.


- The methodologies experimented: while multi-criteria analysis was experimented in the two

Norwegian case studies, life-cycle analysis was experimented in the French one. In the

Aurland-Sogndal project, the Web GIS tool was also combined to the multi-criteria analysis.

- The categories of stakeholders involved in each case study: while similar categories of

stakeholders were initially expected to be involved in the three case studies (such as NGOs,

local elected representatives and private landowners), differences appeared: for instance,

mostly environmental non-governmental organizations were involved in the Cergy-Persan

case study, while many private stakeholders were involved in the Bamble-Rød case study.

Considering these differences, the INSPIRE-Grid partners endeavoured to make the results of the

case studies comparable anyway. This was done by following a same research approach in the three

case studies, which was hinged on both ranking exercises and interviews with stakeholders.

In short, in the three case studies, the fieldwork was always organized following the four same

steps:

- First, a presentation of the power line project that hosted the case study;

- Then, a presentation of the methodology/ies experimented in the case study;

- Third, a ranking exercise during which participants to the fieldwork were asked to rank

different environmental effects on the basis of the importance that should, according to them,

be granted to these effect in the decision-making process;

- Finally, semi-structured interviews with participants.

This structure allowed the researchers to develop a better understanding of how stakeholders of

power grid projects define their preferences and to rank them regarding the issues related to these

projects, general interest and their own private interests. The results of this work fed the

methodological and are described in the relevant chapters (4 and 5.2).


7 SYNTHESIS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The main aim of this chapter is summarise the activity carried out in order to validate the

application of the theoretical guidelines in the specific context of the three case studies selected for

the INSPIRE-Grid project. The two main steps of this process are:

The development of the locally specific communication plans from the theoretical

framework and its checklist for the design of participative processes (D7.1), where we

tailored the results of chapter 5 to be adapted to power lines projects also, including the

results of the previous chapters;

A validation of the locally specific plans through three workshops and role-playing games

where we tested methods like MCA and Web GIS, and concepts like justice (D7.2)

We then summed up this validation in form of synthesis and recommendations in the deliverable

D7.3, embracing most of the results generated through the entire INSPIRE-Grid project.

7.1 Development of locally specific communication and participation plans

Basing on the results described in the previous chapters, the preliminary handbook of guidelines

(D5.2, see chapter 5) is a first theory-driven attempt to combine findings generated through the

project. As the preliminary handbook pictures a theoretical approach to stakeholder participation for

power line projects, we ‘operationalized’ this approach through the ‘locally specific communication

and participation plans’, which are then tailored to real power line projects. An application of the

check-list formulated in the preliminary handbook (see D5.2) to concrete power line projects entails

several steps:

The validation of a hypothetical schedule based on handbook’s checklist.

The design of three workshops to validate this checklist, the locally specific plans, to see

how far the checklist fits.

The second step above poses the general changes that can occur to create a better stakeholder

engagement for power lines in the future. There is a wide literature on how to operationalize these

principles (see Deliverable 5.2, also AccountAbility, 2011; IAP2, 2006; Krütli et al., 2010;

Stauffacher et al., 2008). In the preliminary INSPIRE-Grid guidelines a ten-step approach was

foreseen:

1. Identify stakeholders

2. Map stakeholders

3. Define key issues

4. Understand stakeholder values

5. Determine the engagement level

6. Select assessment methods and engagement tools

7. Draft engagement plan

8. Prepare for engagement

9. Implement the engagement plan

10. Review the engagement process


A complete stakeholder engagement procedure for a power lines would imply going through all the

points mentioned above. These ten points have been partly operationalized in other activities of the

INSPIRE-Grid project, namely:

In chapter 2, ‘Stakeholder concerns and needs’ dealt with the identification of stakeholders

(1), its mapping (2), the definition of key issues (3) and understanding of the stakeholder

values (4).

In chapter 3, ‘State of the art and critical review’ evaluated current participatory practices

and their level (5).

In chapter 5, ‘Processes for public engagement’ addressed the topic of selection of the

assessment methods (6) through a decision tree. Additionally, chapter 4 ‘Methodologies for

the assessment and comparison of grid infrastructures’ designed methods and chapter ‘Case

studies’ applied these methods.

Again in chapter 5, ‘Processes for public engagement’ drafted the engagement plans (7),

including five core-principles and ten steps for stakeholder engagement.

In this chapter we address points 5 to 10. Points 5 (determine the engagement level) and 6 (select

assessment methods and engagement tools) are connected with the previous and subsequent points.

We also explored the four last points of the ten-steps engagement plan:

7. Draft engagement plan

8. Prepare for engagement

9. Implement the engagement plan

10. Review the engagement process

We focused on two main methods applied with an emphasis on stakeholder engagement: MCA and

Web GIS. From these selected methods, we drafted an engagement plan for three power line

projects (step 7). Additionally we carried out the preparation (step 8) and the implementation (9) for

three validation workshops (see Point 7.2 below).

Beside the evaluation of methods in a stakeholder engagement context, we also evaluate the

interplay of the principles/core values and the ten steps for stakeholder engagement (see section

5.4). A way to structure the interplay between the methods tested and the 10-steps for engagement

is the use of the functional dynamic model for stakeholder engagement (see Krütli et al., 2010).

This model makes it possible to structure four different stakeholder engagement levels:

i. information,

ii. consultation,

iii. co-decision and

iv. empowerment.

These levels are then spread over the time in a way that fits planning processes for power lines.

Six phases describe the planning process (see also Roland Berger, 2014):

1. determination of need,

2. project preparation,

3. spatial planning,

4. permitting,

5. construction

6. operation (see Figure 20).


We did not directly work with all the phases in the validation workshops. However, we used the

functional dynamic model as the background to test our research design and hypotheses.

7.2 Validation of the guidelines

Basing on the previous research carried out in the INSPIRE-Grid project, our research contributed

to address three main knowledge gaps related to planning processes for power lines:

While many evaluation perspectives exist for participatory processes, justice aspects remain

under-investigated, especially in planning processes for power lines.

There is an established body of research on stakeholder acceptance of power lines at a

project level but less research has been carried out on earlier stages, for instance during the

selection of a power line corridor.

Compared to other renewable energy related infrastructures, transmission lines have a linear

structure and there is little research available on how to embed stakeholder perspectives on

environmental and landscape character.

7.2.1 Methods and hypotheses to be tested

The main rationale behind the hypotheses we tested in WP7 is that it is unclear what assessment,

communication, and participatory methods are effective to increase acceptance for transmission line

projects. We could identify a first challenge to be addressed through stakeholder-engagement

methods: participatory decision-making. Although in current planning processes project owners

consider the opinions of potentially affected stakeholders (RGI, 2012), no method to systematically

making decisions has been used yet. Basing on the first experiences gathered through the case

studies of the INSPIRE-Grid projects (see chapters 4 and 6), the methods under investigation might

provide an answer to this knowledge gap. Therefore, considering the two main engagement tools to

be tested in the project, Multi-Criteria Analysis and Web GIS, we can formulate the following set of

research questions:

Do innovative planning procedures - using methods/tools like MCA or Web GIS in a participatory

manner - have a positive influence on:

agreement on outcome

the quality of stakeholder interactions

…compared to standard tools for power line planning?

Additionally, in order to validate the locally specific plans, we formulated following additional

research question:

Does enhanced participation in form of high levels of empowerment improve the quality of the

planning process?

Enhancing stakeholder participation in planning processes for power lines gives several advantages

but also new issues. While it is possible to achieve enhanced participation through stakeholder

engagement practices like MCA or Web GIS, there is also a potential for an increased perceived

justice for the affected stakeholders (see Deliverable 2.3). Therefore, we formulate a supplementary

research question:


Do innovative planning procedures - using methods/tools like MCA or Web GIS in a participatory

manner - have a positive influence on perceived procedural justice compared to standard tools for

power line planning?

Additionally, while enhancing stakeholder participation may improve planning processes, new

challenges will appear. If today’s tendencies in the field of stakeholder participation for planning

processes continue, it is still unclear what upcoming challenges will appear. Therefore, we

formulate a last general question related to the forthcoming challenges:

What are the future challenges related to power line planning?

Although this last question did not aim to test a given stakeholder engagement method, its aim is to

pave the way to further research that may be required for planning processes.

7.2.2 Designs of the validation workshops

The validation of the locally specific plans has been carried out in three workshops in three different

countries: Germany, Italy and UK (see Table 13, below).

Table 13: Summary of the validation workshops and their respective approaches

Validation workshops:

Workshop in Milan Workshop in Birmingham Workshop in Schwäbisch Gmünd

Hypotheses (simplified)

Acceptance of the outcome

Quality of interaction


Evaluation of stakeholder engagement and future challenges

Acceptance of the outcome


Justice

Tested tools MCA

MCA

Web GIS

Functional model

MCA

Web GIS

Data Quantitative Quantitative + Qualitative Quantitative + Qualitative

Methods used for validation

Role-play game in fictional case

Survey

Focus groups on a real case

SWOT (Strengths Weaknesses Threats Opportunities) analysis

Envisioning exercise

Survey

Fictional case

Survey

Attendance General stakeholders (TSO, NGO, regulators, citizens, etc.)

TSOs Local stakeholders (TSO, NGOs, citizens)

Date May 19th

and 20th 2015 March 17

th 2016 July 5

th 2016

Validation workshop in Milan, Italy

We carried out the first validation workshop in Milano at the conference jointly organized with

another project funded by the European Commission: BESTGRID “Innovative approaches to grid

development”. The conference was entitled ‘Grid Aesthetics conference’ and it took place on May

19th, 2015. Thirty-five participants attended the workshop, which took the format of a role-play

game in a fictional case, the Utopia region. Four INSPIRE-Grid members carried out the role-play

game. Each of the thirty-five participants played the role of one of the stakeholders involved in the

spatial planning process for a new power line in the Region. We divided participants in four groups

and in each one of them we used Multi Criteria Analysis (MCA) to support the choice of a power


line alternative. MCA is a method to reach conclusions regarding the choice among alternatives,

considering conflicting criteria measured in different units: in each group eight alternatives have

been evaluated though a set of twelve criteria (see Deliverable 7.2). More precisely, in session 1 the

participants ranked a set of technical, economic, social, environmental and landscape-related criteria

related to power lines (see Figure 23). In session 2, this input made it possible to identify which

alternatives cannot be considered because they are certainly a “bad” choice - from the participants´

perspective - and which ones are acceptable and do not represent a conflicting choice (see Figure

23). After both sessions, participants had to fill in a questionnaire, which was the main tool to test

our hypotheses.

Figure 23: Design of the validation workshop carried out in Milano

Validation workshop in Birmingham, UK

On the basis of the experience of the first validation workshop carried out in in Milano, we

validated our findings through an expert-workshop at National Grid in Birmingham on March 17,

2016. We carried out this one-day workshop with eleven participants from National-Grid and seven

participants from the INSPIRE-Grid team. In this workshop, instead of a role-play game, we carried

out several rounds of focus group discussions with experts, mainly TSOs. Instead of a fictional case,

we used a real project to illustrate our methods and to validate some of our hypotheses. The selected

project was the section F (Portbury-Portishead) of the Hinkley Point C Connection (HPPC). This

section of the line had a specific characteristic: it has been difficult for the TSO and the involved

planning organizations to state a clear preference for one of the two path alternatives that have been

evaluated (see Deliverable 7.2). During the first session focused on MCA (session 1 and 4 on Figure

24), the participants discussed the two alternatives and compared them with a specific focus on

some critical issues such as the different evaluation of the effects of a power line (in terms of well-

being, lifetime cost, biodiversity, landscape and visual, heritage and historic environment). Finally,

the participants filled a questionnaire.

During the second session focused on Web-GIS (see Session 2, Figure 24), the discussion focused

on the relevance of Web GIS for power line planning in the UK. We presented the Web GIS setting

of one of the case studies in the INSPIRE-Grid project, Aurland-Sogndal as an example. At the end

of the session, the participants filled another questionnaire.

In the third session, the participants addressed general aspects of stakeholder engagement in

electricity grid planning. They firstly carried out a SWOT-analysis (alternatively SWOT matrix,

acronym for Strengths, Weaknesses, Threats, Opportunities) on the HPPC-project and other

projects, with a specific focus on stakeholder participation and engagement. Then, they performed


an evaluation of UK planning processes for power lines. Grounding on the INSPIRE-Grid previous

research results (see Deliverables 3.2 and 5.2), participants had to evaluate the degree of

stakeholder engagement in three levels (low, medium and high, i.e. information, consultation and

cooperation) in the three main phases of grid planning (need definition, spatial planning and

permitting). For both exercises, we collected the data through participants drawing and pinning

issues on pin-boards.

In the final session entitled “Envisioning the future” (see Figure 24), the participants pinned on a

board the future challenges in one, five and ten years’ time.

Figure 24: General design of the workshops to test the hypotheses for the workshop in Birmingham

Validation workshop in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

We held the last validation workshop in Schwäbisch Gmünd on the 5th of July 2016, aiming to test

most of the validation-hypotheses in this work package. Through this validation workshop, we

tested the hypotheses related to procedural, interactional and distributional justice (see Table 13).

We aimed to divide the participants in an experimental and a control group (see Figure 25), but

carried out only the experimental group, as the amount of participants was not sufficient to reach

reliable results. The background was the fictitious project ‘Utopia 2’, where stakeholders compared

seven power line alternatives to connect different renewable energy production sources in order to

choose the most suitable path (see Deliverables 7.1 and 7.2 for further details). At the beginning of

the workshop, we gave information about the project to the participants. Afterwards they could ask

further questions in a “market place” setting (session 1). The first session simulated a real setting to

share information about power line projects. After the market place, we aimed to randomly divide

the participants in two groups, an experimental group (session 2a) and a control group (session 2b)


(see Figure 25). The task of the two groups was to identify the most suitable alternative for the

power grid by using different support tools: i) MCA in the experimental group; ii) a comparative

table with the impacts of the different alternatives in the control group.

In session 2a (experimental), the participants ranked a set of eleven technical, economic, social and

environmental effects in an order of increasing priority. We used this ranking as an input to the

MCA. In session 2b, the participants would have discussed the seven alternative power line paths in

a moderated discussion in order to find out if some alternatives were more suitable than others (see

Figure 25). As material, we would give them only a table with rough levels of anticipated conflicts

of the different alternatives in a qualitative way: ‘high’, ‘middle’, ‘low’ or ‘none’. After this two-

paths setting (experimental and control group), the two groups would come together again to

participate to the Web-GIS session (session 3) where they provide spatial inputs through the

INSPIRE-Grid Web-GIS platform.

We selected the area around Schwäbisch Gmünd because the region was previously affected by a

power line project that has been withdrawn by the TSO TransnetBW in 2014 (Line project:

Bünzwangen-Goldshöfe). Therefore, the region has already stakeholders that are informed about

power line issues. However, in order to avoid any precedent affective influences and biases related

to the previous power line project, we designed a fictitious game using other topographical areas.

Figure 25: General design of the workshop in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany

7.2.3 Results of the validation workshops

The results of the validation workshops show that current planning-processes can be improved

through the use of additional stakeholder engagement methods. MCA showed the ability to create a

reduced set of alternative power line paths by using stakeholder preferences in a ranking of effects

and to generate acceptance for the outcome when stakeholders agree on a ranking (see Table 14).

However, MCA did not necessarily foster systematic stakeholder acceptance of the outcomes. The


other method tested, Web GIS, showed to be useful for stakeholders to communicate spatially

related points of view with the process owners. However the method showed some limitations

regarding the representativeness of the affected population in this kind of information exchanges.

Nevertheless, the results suggest that using tools like MCA and Web GIS potentially increase

perceived justice by the stakeholders. However, these results related to justice are not robust enough

due to a relatively low amount of participants we had the validation workshop in Germany (see

Point 7.2.1). Therefore further research is needed to robustly confirm this link between new

methods and perceived justice.

Table 14: Validated hypotheses through the validation workshops carried out in INSPIRE-Grid (see

the details of the results in Deliverable 7.2).

Issue Method tested

Hypothesis Result

Participative decision-making

MCA

Stakeholders’ agreement in the different steps of the stakeholder engagement process is a predictor of acceptance on the final outcome.

Yes

Stakeholders accept the decision support tools’ results, e.g. the best alternative identified by Multi-Criteria Analysis

Not necessary

Discussion quality is a predictor of acceptance of the outcome

No

Web GIS

Stakeholders consider the tool an effective way to express some aspects of their point of views.

Yes, but with some limitations

The decision makers consider the tool effective to elicit stakeholders' preferences in advance so that they can take them into consideration in taking their decision.

Rather Yes

Perceived justice MCA + Web GIS

The subjective perception of procedural justice depends on the design of the participation procedure, especially on the degree of the usage of appropriate components or tools.

Potentially Yes

Locally specific plans

MCA + Web GIS

High levels of stakeholder empowerment improve the quality of the process.

Not necessarily

While the theoretical guidelines list several potential stakeholder participation tools and the context

of their use in planning processes, the results on a specific workshop session on the validation of the

Locally specific plans suggest that although stakeholder engagement forms may remain at a relative

low level (information or consultation), there is a large potential to increase their quality through a

better implementation of engagement methods. Additionally, from a process perspective, the results

suggest that planning processes would not highly benefit of higher forms of participation like co-

decision as there is room for improvement at lower levels of participation, information and

consultation, and therefore an emphasis can be put on the quality of these engagements. Therefore,

the empirical validation of the Locally specific plans suggests that participative decision-making

methods like MCA should be applied through a rationale of higher quality involvement instead

higher levels of empowerment (see Figure 20).

Finally, we addressed the future challenges related to power line planning through one session in

one validation workshop (see Point 7.2.2). The results suggest that the most relevant trends will be

an increasing pressure to reduce the planning costs, to foster an integration of different planning

models from other fields, and to bridge the local-national divide in planning, where conflicts can be

locally harsh for decisions made at a national level. The main limitation of the results provided in

this deliverable is that we carried out the validation workshops in given specific environments,

either through past projects, specific attendances or in form of fictional power line projects.


Nevertheless, our result show that MCA and Web GIS can be used, considering their limitations

though, in future planning processes for power lines.

7.3 Synthesis and recommendations

The issue of enhancing stakeholder participation can be tackled from many perspectives, through

many levels and by many actors. Therefore, basing on a multidisciplinary approach carried out in

the INSPIRE-Grid project, in this point we report a synthesis of the main findings of the projects

through three main challenges related to power line planning to be addressed:

1. Addressing Stakeholder expectations and the importance of trust (findings from D2.1; D5.1;

D5.4)

2. Using participatory decision-making methods (findings from D3.2; D4.1-5; D5.2-3; D6.1-3;

D7.1-2)

3. Untapping the potentials of stakeholder participation (findings from D2.3; D7.1-2).

Each of these challenges entails a description of the problem, recommendations on how to tackle it

and their substantiation through the findings of the project. We address these findings and

recommendations mainly to process owners of grid extension projects, for instance Transmission

Grid Operators (TSO) or regulators and planning authorities. Nevertheless, these results are also

highly relevant for policy-makers and civil-society actors involved in grid extension projects.

Addressing these three challenges through the project made it possible to formulate

recommendations for actors involved in grid planning, especially TSOs, regulators and policy

makers, but also for non-institutional actors such as NGOs, citizen’s initiatives or the general

public.

7.3.1 Challenge 1: Addressing Stakeholder expectations and the importance of trust

This challenge addresses the tension between processes that are defined in planning regulations and

informal aspects existing along with these process, carried out mainly by the process owners (TSOs

or regulators). This challenge is composed of two main issues that we addressed in the project:

a. Addressing stakeholders’ needs and concerns, and handling values

b. Understanding the role of trust

Recommendations to address stakeholders’ needs and concerns, and handling values:

Giving opportunities to address and discuss also emotional or personal aspects of

stakeholder concerns and needs helps to avoid negative attitude toward the process owner.

Bindingly clarifying and clearly communicating what is part of the formal and what is part

of the informal procedure helps to create innovative approaches to deal with stakeholders.

Indicating where and how the results of the informal process can be integrated into the

formal procedure of the decision-making process might improve the attitude of stakeholders

toward the process.

Dealing with stakeholders’ needs and concerns only in regard to the specific (national,

regional, social, political, environmental, technical) context of the project helps to identify

substantive values and crucial issues, which might be decisive for the engagement process.

The identification of stakeholders in a transparent and open way helps to ensure that all

interested parties can participate.


Enabling conflicting stakeholders’ groups a possibility to exchange their views and

understand their positions early in the process helps to prevent potential conflicts with

specific engagements.

Recommendations to understand the role of trust and to increase it, for TSOs:

Investing in project manager’s training including not only technical or economic skills, but

also soft skills, like (intercultural) communication, negotiation, or context comprehension

helps to gain trust from stakeholders.

Focusing on trust-building activities such as making phone calls to affected stakeholders

when new information arrives helps to sustain trust. Relating answers to relevant

stakeholders directly, remembering issues that came up during previous meetings and

present their answers also help to sustain trust.

Allowing enough resources for stakeholders’ engagement to a project manager in order to

deal sufficiently with the variety of the context issues and broad geographical range of the

project avoids stakeholders feeling only instrumentally engaged in the process.

A high staff turnover during the project (especially project managers) requires building

trusted relationships again, which is a fragile and time-consuming process.

Specifically, for planning authorities:

Making a clear statement about the purpose of the project, indicating the technical,

economic, political and public interests helps avoiding confusions among stakeholders and

makes the process more transparent.

7.3.2 Challenge 2: Using participatory decision-making methods

Participatory decision-making methods are necessary in planning processes to engage stakeholders.

However, it is still unclear what methods are effective to increase acceptance of power lines.

Therefore, we addresses three aspects related to stakeholder engagement methods:

a. The functional use of stakeholder engagement tools in planning processes

b. Using participative decision-making methodsEvaluating the global impact of power lines

Recommendations for a functional use of stakeholder engagement tools in the process:

Involving stakeholders during the definition of needs for grid expansion before potential

corridors are selected contributes to better subsequent process steps, as stakeholders better

understand the needs for grid extension.

The use of participatory structured decision-making methods to make decisions contributes

to a more transparent decision-making process.

The existing large range of engagement tools makes it possible to engage stakeholders in

very specific ways to reduce conflicts according to their amount and nature.

Ensuring a high quality of the already existing stakeholder engagements forms like

informing and consulting, before pursuing higher forms of stakeholder participation like co-

decision, helps to keep a clear stakeholder engagement frame on what is to be discussed and

decided at each stage of the process.

Recommendations to use participative decision-making methods:

The use of a tiering approach to planning, where ‘higher-tier’ or strategic decisions set the

context for other, subsequent ‘lower-tier’ decisions, gives the appropriate amount of

attention and detail at the right time, in line with the project maturity level.


The use of a Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) helps to manage conflicts and supports the

choice of a good alternative.

When evaluating path alternatives, the selection of all reasonable alternatives including the

zero-alternative is a key point to obtain a good result. The zero-alternative represents the

projection of the current situation in the future if you ‘do nothing’. Therefore, as the

planning process goes on, the choice of the zero-alternative over the project might become

less attractive.

An MCA can be used to decide about compensation measures to rebalance the residual

negative impact of a project in a transparent and participatory way.

Using Web GIS to communicate power line route alternatives and to collect local

topographical information can be useful to elicit people’s spatial preferences compared to

previous paper-map based methods.

Recommendations for evaluating the global impact of power lines:

The use of LCA in the early phases of the project to evaluate and communicate the global

impacts of future power lines can help to explain the need for grid extension.

Carrying out LCA in the most neutral way, for instance through researchers, is better for the

perception of the results, as TSOs are likely to be considered ‘judge and party’ by

stakeholders.

Exchanging on LCA’s results with stakeholder groups who have the technical resources to

deal with it helps the understanding of needs for grid extension. However, communicating

results to stakeholders that cannot process this information might have detrimental effects on

the process.

7.3.3 Challenge 3: Untapping potentials of stakeholder participation

Untapping potentials of stakeholder participation are the expected results of more inclusive

planning processes through enhanced stakeholder participation, mainly through the methods we

tested in the INSPIRE-Grid project. For this, we inquired the two following issues:

a. Enabling a better perceived justice of planning processes

b. Future trends and challenges

Recommendations to improve the perceived justice of planning processes:

Putting more effort into building knowledge, initiating and maintaining a broad and

continuous societal dialogue about energy transition – not only sector specific but on the

system question in a comprehensive way – including the aspects of decentralized vs.

centralized energy production or the high degree of interconnections to the neighbouring

countries, fosters a better grasping of the need for grid extension among affected

stakeholders.

Stronger efforts in communication and education measures focusing on the ‘consciousness

of society’ where infrastructure is a fundamental condition of people living together might

reduce the maximization of individual benefits compared to the needs of society.

Starting trust building measures and positive communications already in the preplanning-

phase, before the formal procedure starts, might prevent later crystallization of stakeholder

opposition.

Favouring local level and smaller groups as a communication format instead of large-scale

public hearings makes communication more personal and less anonymous, improving

perceived fairness.


Recommendations to address future trends and challenges:

Quantity and quality of participation measures: improving the quality of the existing

stakeholder engagement practices keeps a clear frame on what is to be discussed and

decided, while doing more participation might potentially deceive stakeholders when they

realize they cannot change or decide what they want.

Monitoring stakeholder engagements is useful to ensure a minimal level of engagement

quality.

Fostering exchanges on participation models, experiences and cultures, between sectors (e.g.

rail and road planning) and between countries can contribute to the development of new

ideas on the way stakeholders might be engaged in the future.

While today the largest part of the stakeholder participation additional to the legal requirements is

carried out by the TSOs in order to accelerate grid extension, the findings of this project go beyond

regular line-related projects. Our results also suggest that grid extension projects should be put in a

broader context, including stakeholders in a dialogue on the whole energy system and its transition

toward a more sustainable European electricity supply (see Figure 21).


8 MAIN EVENTS AND DISSEMINATION ACTIVITIES

A significant part of the project was devoted to the dissemination of results within the project as

well as towards the scientific community, stakeholders, decision makers and policy makers,

focusing on different target groups and providing to each one the appropriate informative material

through the most appropriate medium. The dissemination also aims at providing readily-accessible

information to the general public by means of a website.

In order to reach such objective, the dissemination can be subdivided into the following activities:

1. Establishing and updating project website, concerning the creation of a project website and

the development of links with existing websites and electronic networks.

2. Organizing project workshops

3. Production of different synthesis of the project results targeted to different kinds of

audience.

1.1 The website

The creation of the project web site aims at supporting the dissemination of the project main topics

and of the main results achieved. It is effectively the main medium used for providing useful,

updated and readily-accessible information about the project towards the general public as well as

towards scientific community, stakeholders, NGOs, decision makers and policy makers.

The project’s public web site address is: http://www.inspire-grid.eu. A first public version of the

web site has been realized in the first months of the project and after a testing period it has been

switched on to the general public the 24th

February 2014. In order to improve the user experience, a

second and final release was delivered in the second part of the project. The new web site (Errore.

L'origine riferimento non è stata trovata.) was switched on to the general public on 5th

of

November 2015 and it was officially presented during the Second General Assembly held in Zürich

on 26th

of November 2015.

The new web site interface has been developed focusing on

• facilitating the consultation of the contents;

• making them easily findable and readable and

• providing an intuitive web navigation.

The new web site maintained also the architecture used for the first release, being structured in two

major areas: a public section and a private section. The public section, accessible to every user,

offers general information about the project and the involved partners, including all public

deliverables and other public documents produced in the framework of the project. The reserved

area contains material accessible by project partners only, mainly working documents and any other

material considered useful to the project partners.

The main menu for the web site navigation, displayed in the header of each web site page, allows

the access to the main areas of the project web site by clicking on their relative menu-boxes:

About INSPIRE-Grid

News

Events

Publications

http://www.inspire-grid.eu/


Contact;

Results

Figure 26: INSPIRE-Grid web site homepage (second and final release)

The web site is considered the main tool for spreading the project results and achievements and for

keeping the public updated with the latest news and progresses of the project. All results and

materials produced along all the project lifetime are available in the website. Specifically, in the

section “Results”, the user can find the main results and tools produced by the project and a

collection of synthesis documents targeted to different kinds of audience. Due to the relevance that

a global medium has, the web site is perfectly suitable to keep the largest amount of people updated

and it is fully portable, that is to say accessible from mobile devices. Through it, surfers can easily

access all project public material and get detailed information about the project contents, goals,

achievements and related initiatives.

1.2 Project workshops

During the lifetime of the project, the consortium organised several workshops and public events

with the aim not only of disseminating project activities and results but also to receive feedbacks

and suggestions.

The organised events can be classified as follows:

1. General assemblies of the project

2. Target group specific events

3. Public events


1.2.1 General assemblies of the project

In the first categories we can mention the kick of meeting and two General Assemblies. The kick of

meeting was held in RSE premises in Milan on 8th of October 2013 and was attended by project

partners, observers and the EC representative. In the meeting the grid expansion issues in the

European context were discussed and an overview of some other European projects dealing with

them was presented. Specifically, some activities related to the project topic were presented; among

them:

The FP7 project REALISEGRID and HIGHWAY2050, related to Cost-Benefit Analysis for

the selection of the project of common interest and the development of electricity highways

The IEE project BestGrid,

UK National Grid "Stakeholders Consultation" project;

Procedures for grid licensing in Norway and the stakeholder engagement.

Stattnet Sustainable Grid Development Project;

A French innovative approach for Grid Development Project;

The German "Smart Grid" acceptance project

The experience of Grid Development in Italy.

Then the general structure of the INSPIRE-Grid project was explained, with a general description of

its objectives, of the planned activities and of the expected results. The approach of INSPIRE-Grid

project and its implementation was discussed among project partners and with the invited observers.

1.2.2 Target group specific events

The target groups specific events during the project aimed at bringing together a small group of

stakeholders and receive their direct feedback in order to adapt activities and recommendations

accordingly. The first workshop took place in October 2014 and addressed a broader range of

stakeholders, such as TSOs that were not part of the consortium, NGOs and other researchers. It

focused on the first results of the project regarding stakeholders’ concerns and needs and was

mainly developed by IZES and ETH Zurich who had already developed (intermediate) results by

then.

During the course of the project, it became clearer that it would be more beneficial to address more

TSOs in order to understand their immediate experiences from projects on the ground in more detail

and have their direct feedback on the research conducted. Thus, the second event that took place in

October 2016, targeted grid operators from all over Europe. The programme included introductions

to the work done within INSPIRE-Grid on MCA, WebGIS, best practices on stakeholder

participation and the research conducted within case studies. In addition, exercises and role playing

games on WebGIS and MCA were used to bring these tools closer and increase the understanding.

Results of the workshops were used in work packages 7 and for the development of the three policy

briefs.

Finally, it was decided to not run a separate event for scientists only, but rather integrate discussions

on the implications of the project for future research into the final conference. For this matter,

researchers from other European country that deal with similar subject matters were invited as


speakers for the conference in January 2017 and two discussion sessions on “(How) can social

science research interact with real life projects to learn more about potential of stakeholder

participation?” and “What are future areas of research interest?” were integrated into the

programme.

1.2.3 Public events

Public events were used by the consortium to make important stakeholders aware of the project and

its (intermediate) results and engage in discussions about them. One two-day workshop was

organised on 19 and 20 May 2015 in Milan, Italy together with the consortium of the IEE-project

BESTGRID. The idea of combining both consortia that dealt with similar topics from a different

angle (while INSPIRE-Grid was more research-focused, BESTGRID was more about trying

different approaches together in real life projects) was to increase outreach. The topic of the

workshop was “Grid Aesthetics - How to engage stakeholders in landscape planning, design and

aesthetics of grid infrastructure”. It consisted of presentations on the following topics:

Landscape and landscape planning – an introduction

Attitudes and perceptions – how do we feel about our surroundings?

How can design change the way we plan electricity grids?

Overview: new landscape and design approaches in Europe

Landscape planning to improve biodiversity

Moreover, multi-criteria analysis was presented and explained with the help of a role playing game.

On the second day, participants could take part in a field trip to discover new pylon designs

developed by the Italian TSO Terna and measurements implemented to integrated infrastructure

better into landscape and the environment. The event attracted around 60 participants from

European TSOs, research institutes and universities, civil society groups, industry groups and

(regulatory) authorities.

The second public event took place on 25 January 2017 in Brussels and aimed at presenting the

final results of the project to a more political audience in Brussels. It attracted more than 60

participants from the European political sphere (European Parliament, Commission, think tanks)

and TSOs and researchers from all over Europe. Presentations were held on the following topics:

Introduction to INSPIRE-Grid’s main lessons learned

Landscapes and power lines: inevitable conflict

How can participation work in practice? Experiences from the field

Designing participation: On the relevance of roles, expertise and power issues

Danish state of the art on engagement: Focus on circumstances, public worries and co-

routing

Are participatory processes enough to account for dissensus in electric grid projects?

Considerations on limits and opportunities of stakeholders engagement


Delayed grid development: are citizens' groups putting on the breaks?

The afternoon of the event focused on discussing some main issues identified during the project,

including:

“Integration of formal and informal participation”

“Participatory decision-making methods”

“(How) can social science research interact with real life projects to learn more about the

potential of stakeholder participation?”

“What are future areas of research interest?”

1.3 Synthesis documents

The project consortium produced different documents that aimed at disseminating the main purpose

and messages of the project to a wider (non-scientific) audience; the only exception is Technical

Synthesis which is addressed to a more specialized audience. The four documents differ in their

main purpose, length and time of release.

1.3.1 Flyer

The project flyer was developed in 2014 with the aim of giving a short introduction to the project to

external audiences, so that they would receive an overview over the project structure, objectives,

main activities and partners. The flyer was distributed at industry events and when dealing with

external stakeholders, such as interviewees in the case studies. For this purpose, a French version

was developed as well.

1.3.2 Summary for policymakers

The summary for policymakers consists of three different policy briefs. It was developed in the final

months of the project and summarises the main recommendations for a non-technical audience. The

policy briefs each deal with one of the three challenges identified:

Stakeholder expectations and the importance of trust

Participatory decision-making methods

Potentials of stakeholder participation

Each of the briefs gives an introduction to the different research findings and concludes with a set

of very concrete recommendations and gives hints on were to find further information, both in

INSPIRE-Grid deliverables and external sources.


Figure 27: INSPIRE-Grid official flyer

1.3.3 Brochure

The brochure which was published at the end of the project, gives a 30-page overview of the

different activities conducted throughout the project and the main recommendations drawn. The list

of contents includes:

Introduction

Foreword by Catharina Sikow-Magny, Head of Unit at DG Energy

Stakeholder groups and their concerns and needs

Best practices for stakeholder participation


Multi-criteria analysis

Life-cycle analysis

Web GIS

Case studies

Main recommendations

Where can you find more information?

Partners

Printed copies have been distributed at the final conference of the project. Moreover, partners will

continue to hand them to important (political) contacts and use it for their dissemination beyond the

project lifespan.

1.3.4 Technical Synthesis

The technical synthesis is addressed to people who, although they are not specialists, are interested

in understanding in some detail the activity that was carried out and the results that were obtained,

before going through the relevant technical deliverables.

The content of the technical synthesis follows mostly the technical part of the present deliverable.

The text was subject to a comprehensive review, a standardization of the language and a general

correction. A simple template, but appropriate for a printed report, was selected among different

templates suggested by the publisher. Graphs and tables were recomposed according to the chosen

format. The report has been published and distributed to the project partners in order to let them

distribute to the interested contacts. In addition, the pdf version of the report is available in the

project website for downloading.


9 INSPIRE-GRID REPORTS AND PUBLICATIONS

Schmidt, P & Lilliestam, J. (2015). Reducing or fostering public opposition? A critical reflection on

the neutrality of pan-European cost–benefit analysis in electricity transmission planning. Energy

Research & Social Science, 10, 114-122.

Späth, L. & Scolobig, A. (2017). Stakeholder empowerment through participatory planning

practices: The case of electricity transmission lines in France and Norway. Energy Research &

Social Science, 23, 189-198.


9.1 Deliverable list

All deliverables are available in the project website5.

Del. no. Deliverable name Responsible partner

D1.1 Kick off meeting RSE

D1.4 First General Assembly RSE

D1.6 Second General Assembly RSE

D1.8 Final General Assembly RSE

D2.1 Analysis of concerns and needs: Stakeholder Map IZES GGMBH

D2.3 Catalogue of criteria which have to be fulfilled IZES GGMBH

D3.2 Establishing the best practices and determining a tool box ETH-Z

D4.1 Critical review of existing methodologies POLIEDRA

D4.2 Methodologies for the life cycle assessment ARMINES

D4.3 Multi-stakeholder and multi-criteria methodologies POLIEDRA

D4.4 Implementation of the web-GIS tool RSE

D4.5 Recommendations for the application of the methodologies POLIEDRA

D5.1 Theoretical framework for methods development PIK

D5.2 Preliminary handbook of guidelines PIK

D5.3 Final Handbook PIK

D5.4 Improved theoretical framework PIK

D6.1 Preliminary framework for case studies PIK

D6.2 Selection of case studies RTE

D6.3 Results of methodologies implementation in case studies RTE

D7.1 Locally specific plans ETH-Z

D7.2 Report on validation exercise ETH-Z

D7.3 Synthesis and recommendations ETH-Z

D8.1 Project website RSE

D8.2 Summary for policy makers RGI

D8.3 Online newsletters/information bulletins RGI

D8.4 Workshop reports RGI

D8.5 Final synthesis report RSE

5 http://www.inspire-grid.eu/index.php/inspire-grid-publications/



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