What are the regionally specific institutions that matter for renewable energy deployment and how can they be identified? Some insights from Italian regions

While energy transition processes are embedded in locally and regionally specific institutions, infrastructures and natural environments challenges remain in identifying the institutions that matter for renewable energy deployment, how they work and how they influence energy transition at the regional level. The paper discusses the institutional configurations, discernible by looking at the influence that the socio-material forms of energy exert on energy infrastructure, and its governance. It is argued that the socio-material dimensions of renewable energy are useful to emphasise the institutions that matter for renewable energy deployment and can shed light on the capacity of regional governments to steer renewable energy transitions. By adopting a comparative case study approach, the paper stresses the way in which the normative and cultural contexts of the regions under-consideration have influenced and modulated the effects of national regulatory schemes on renewable energy deployment. While similar institutional settings have worked in different ways across the regions investigated, the approach adopted is helpful in emphasising the relational and multi-scalar character of institutions and their effect on the regional capacity, and capability, to act in renewable energy deployment.