Societal acceptance and Energy Efficiency in EU Energy Systems: Governance Regimes of Trust and Regulatory Quality

Across the European Union (EU), delays in project implementation, permitting bottlenecks, and resistance to infrastructure development frequently prevent energy systems from operating at technically achievable efficiency levels. This chapter argues that societal acceptance of energy infrastructure and energy projects constitutes a central system-level condition shaping the extent to which energy efficiency gains are realised in practice. We conceptualize societal acceptance as an empirically observable implementation condition reflected in outcomes such as project delays, renewable energy uptake, permitting performance, and deployment effectiveness. These indicators are measured using ENTSO-E, capturing variation in implementation performance across different EU Member States. Using regime-based interaction models and multilevel estimation techniques on panel data covering 2014-2022, the chapter examines how social acceptance and the implementation outcomes of energy infrastructure projects are shaped by regulatory quality and institutional trust across distinct governance configurations. Regulatory quality is measured using the Worldwide Governance Indicators, while institutional trust is derived from the European Social Survey and harmonised to the country-year level. The findings suggest that societal acceptance is jointly shaped by institutional trust and regulatory quality, but that this relationship is structurally conditioned by regime membership. In higher-governance regimes, characterised by stronger regulatory quality and higher institutional trust, societal acceptance is higher and implementation outcomes are more efficient, reflected in reduced delays and smoother deployment of energy infrastructure. In lower-governance regimes, weaker institutional conditions correspond to reduced societal acceptance and less efficient implementation outcomes, with increased friction in permitting, higher transaction costs, and underutilisation of infrastructure capacity.