The Energy Transition, the inevitable shift away from cheap, centralized, largely fossil-based energy systems, is one of the core challenges of our time. This book provides a coherent and novel insight into the nature of this challenge and possible strategies to accelerate and guide such transitions. It brings together prominent European scholars and practitioners from the fields of energy transition research and governance to draw attention to the current complex dynamics in the energy domain, and offer elegant and provocative explanations for current crises and lock-ins. They identify multiple energy transition pathways that emerge and increasingly compete, and emphasize the need and possibilities for novel governance. By analysing the complexity of energy transition processes and the difficulties in shifting to sustainable pathways, this text questions the extent to which actually governing energy transitions is already reality, just an illusion, or a bare necessity.

The limited sustainability of our current energy supply systems necessitates a transition to a more sustainable system. Taking a systemic, socio-cultural approach, this book provides new insights into the nature of this challenge and explores possible strategies to accelerate and guide such transitions.

1. Introduction 2. Setting the Stage for the Energy Transition 3. Energy Transitions in Practice: The Case of Global Indoor Climate Change 4. Resisting Change? The Transnational Dynamics of European Energy Regimes 5. Carbon Capture and Storage: Sustainable Solution or Reinforced Carbon Lock-in? 6. Analyzing Emerging Sustainable Energy Niches in Europe: A Strategic Niche Management Perspective 7. Motors of Sustainable Innovation: Understanding Transitions from a Technological Innovation System's Perspective 8. Civil Society in Sustainable Energy Transitions 9. Future Electricity Systems: Visions, Scenarios and Transition Pathways 10. The Dutch Energy Transition Project (2000--2009) 11. Working in the Science-Policy Interface: Transition Monitoring in the Dutch Energy Transition Program 12. An International Perspective on the Energy Transition Project 13. Energy Governance in the European Union: Enabling Conditions for a Low Carbon Transition? 14. Conclusion: Is Governance of the Energy Transition a Reality, an Illusion or a Necessity? Contributors Bibliography Index