GreenGov

Green energy exchanges in cluster settings hold great potential but frequently fall short of expectations. A key challenge is cluster governance and fostering effective collaboration among the involved organisations. Problems related to governance arise when companies seek to exchange products such as carbon, power, or water for money. When an exchange agreement is made, the involved companies need to ensure that their incentives are met. 

Since green energy projects like GreenLab often span multiple sectors, take time to establish, and involve high levels of uncertainty and asset specificity, setting up inter-firm energy exchanges is challenging. This project examines how firms govern their green energy exchanges within a cluster and explores the hub organisation’s role in supporting these governance efforts. It studies GreenLab’s cluster-based governance model and compares it with alternative governance approaches to identify factors that promote successful outcomes. 

Gaining a deeper understanding of the challenges in developing and governing green energy clusters and potential solutions will be of significant interest not only to cluster-participating companies and firms in the green energy sector, but also to policymakers, local municipalities, and society at large.

What the researchers think:

"Research on green energy exchanges often emphasises technological development, yet management research plays an important role in facilitating and commercialising these advancements in the technical sciences. Many promising energy exchanges encounter challenges not due to technological shortcomings but because collaborative clusters must be governed effectively to foster such exchanges"