Energy crisis accelerating climate transitions? Explaining energy price support scheme differences across countries

Unprecedented steep increases in energy prices in 2022–2023 was an external shock that affected climate transitions of domestic electricity systems all over Europe. This shock led countries to introduce costly fiscal support schemes, but while some countries did this in a way that underpinned the transitions, others did not. In this paper, we develop new concepts for describing cross-country differences in how climate policy is integrated into electricity support schemes and an analytical framework for explaining such differences. A comparative case study of electricity price support schemes for households in Norway, Sweden and Denmark shows that all countries aimed to shield vulnerable households, but only Denmark designed schemes that also could accelerate the climate transition. In all countries, established climate governance practices and administrative-political structures have influenced the support schemes. Climate governance in all countries have historically been characterized by correcting market failure, but this only had an imprint on Danish support measures. However, the impact of the socio-technological transition on climate governance influenced both Swedish and Danish support measures. In all countries, we see a new strong focus on securing popular support for climate transition. This hindered climate integration in Sweden and Norway, but not in Denmark. Overall, the findings can inform policymaking on the implications of different types of design choices for support schemes on national climate transition ambitions.