Samenvatting

Purpose: In an attempt to enhance insight to overcome the financial, regulatory and organisational barriers preventing the development of 4DHC in NW Europe (NWE), common barriers are identified, but the issues and solutions are not well understood. Purpose is to give local authorities insight into barriers and solutions in exemplar pilot projects and the way barriers are closely linked to stakeholders in their geographical, political, and cultural context in NWE. Methods: Integrating stakeholder theory and the problem-solving perspective while leveraging action research in 6 local DHC networks in UK, Ireland, Belgium, France, and the Netherlands. Based on our Interreg HeatNet NWE research a customized multi-level stakeholder analysis framework is developed to identify stakeholders, to examine if specific barriers are interrelated to specific stakeholders, to understand the specific context, and to be able to compare the outcome of these 6 different pilot projects. Results: Initial lessons from this multiple case study of Energy Transition in NWE gives an insight into barriers and solutions and the way they closely linked to stakeholders in their geographical, political, and cultural context in NWE. Conclusion: Effective use of Stakeholder Management Technology to stimulate system innovation is a pivot between the process of in-depth understanding of user- en supply contexts and a system how to develop a stakeholder engagement plan.