Identification of Barriers to the Development of CHP Technologies in Iran Using Multi-Level Perspective

Introduction: Combined heat-and-power (CHP) production technology is an eco-friendly, low-carbon technology which has always been studied by researchers of technological management. In recent years, after the development of low-carbon technologies in the world, CHP development has gained attention as an effective solution to improve energy efficiency in Iran. Although the total nominal capacity of distributed generation (DG) plants was 735 megawatts until the end of the year 2016, according to the 6th National Development Plan, the Ministry of Energy has undertaken to increase the power supply capacity by 25000 megawatts by the end of the plan’s duration (2021), 3000 megawatts of which is planned to be produced by DG and CHP. However, the development of the CHP technology has not currently been achieved as planned. During the first two years of the 6th Plan (the years 2017 and 2018), the aggregate nominal capacity of the new distributed generation plants is less than half of what was initially planned. The main focus of the paper is to examine the causes and factors leading to a lack of CHP development in Iran, contrary to the anticipated goals. In general, as the development desired by technology policymakers has not been achieved during those years, the purpose of the paper is to extract the hidden causes of the undeveloped technology trajectory in Iran which has not received due attention in current analyses. Furthermore, a comprehensive and multi-level framework of analysis has been provided in the paper by which a set of development policies are suggested. This research conducted on the combined heat and power in Iran with a look at its past ten years and was carried out during two years since 2017.
 
Materials and methods: The first step to make policy for technology development is to recognize the barriers and bottlenecks of technology development. Regarding the growing significance of Combined Heat and-Power (CHP) technology in developed economies and also the potential competence in Iran, this paper aims at identifying the most important barriers hindering the CHP development in Iran in comparison with the national plans. The Multi-Level Perspective approach was selected to recognize these bottlenecks as it considers the social and macro contextual factors.
In line with the purpose of the research, providing a model to analyze obstacles and the policies made for the development of the technology, a multi-level perspective (including the three levels of micro, meso, and macro) was used, and a collection of obstacles to the development of CHP in Iran was extracted, each of which was related to a variable and confirmed through interview tools. Then, a questionnaire having been sent to the experts of the technology was used to validate the data.The problems were identified and, then, verified using confirmatory factor analysis
 
Result:Based on the obtained results, all the barriers obtained in this research were confirmed by experts and also the connection of these barriers with different levels of multilevel approach was proved. The results demonstrate that the social, cultural, and macro-economic factors play a more important role compared to technological factors.
Regarding the obstacles related to socio-technical regimes, the structure of the country's industry is the most significantly known obstacle. More precisely, the common use of electricity in the national grid and the formation of the structure of the country's industry accordingly, are the most important obstacles to undermining the development of CHP technology, according to the experts. With little difference in the structure of the industry, institutions are the second major obstacles at the level of technical-economic regimes, and, in particular, the lack of rules and standards required to connect micro-sized CHP power plants to the national grid plays the biggest role.
At the macro level, cultural barriers exert the greatest weight according to the experts. In this regard, the particular preference for foreign technologies and products to the domestic samples in the first place, and with a small difference, the value of earning money in any way and in the shortest possible time, two major cultural indicators in Iran have been identified in the field of energy, and the specificity of CHP technology has slowed down the process of technology development. Macro-economic barriers, with a slight difference from cultural barriers, are the second most important macro-level barriers. More precisely, inadequate business infrastructure in the country and the low prices of energy carriers are the most remarkable obstacles to the country's macro-economy that have affected the development of CHP technology.
 
Discussion and Conclusion: The remarkable result of this research is that the most important obstacles and problems are, firstly, related to the level of socio-technical regimes and, secondly, related to the macro and extra-systemic factors. Perhaps the most important achievement of this article is that despite the major role of institutional and structural problems in the problems related to the lack of technological development in the country's energy sector, attention to other aspects of socio-technical regimes such as cultural barriers and macroeconomic problems is also necessary. This conclusion is in line with Carlson's view that environmental and social factors can play a very important role in the emergence of problems and obstacles to technology development, especially in developing countries. Also, these results are also consistent with Foxon et al. point out in their research that the transition of energy systems to a new regime requires the interaction and connection of all three levels of multilevel approach with each other and focusing on one level can not properly define the transition path. In addition, the findings are in same line with Giles’ point of view that existing cultural factors and discourses as an important factor in the technological transition of energy systems to low-carbon technologies. This conclusion can be considered in line with the conclusion of Mousavi et al., who believe that fossil energy regimes are one of the most important obstacles to sustainable transition in Iran.