The majority of water bodies in Sweden have a lower than desirable environmental status. Sweden has many hydropower plants that operate on old, or completely without, a permit. A government decision has been taken to re-trial all hydropower starting in 2022 so that after the process is completed, all power plants will have a permit containing modern environmental conditions. For this environmental modernisation to be carried out with the best possible outcome, communication between government employees and hydropowerplant owners is required. This paper has investigated the communication regarding the re-trialprocess between authorities and owners of small-scale hydropower plants. How is symmetrical or asymmetric communication experienced and are there any additional limiting or enabling factors influencing communication? The thesis is limited to investigating hydropower plants and authorities located in southern and central Sweden. The hydropower plants in the study were not allowed to exceed a capacity of 10 MW as this is the Energy Agency's definition of small-scale hydropower. The overall method approach is qualitative, and the method used to obtain empirical data is semi-structured interviews. The respondents are three persons with key functions employed by executive authorities, as well as seven persons who are owners of small-scale hydropower plants. The results show that there are factors that hinder effective communication and cooperation such as, for the owners, past bad experiences in contact with these authorities. The results also show that communication is an area under development in the authorities. Deficiencies in communication from both parties in the form of misunderstandings have also been identified. Both previous research and the results of the thesis show symmetrical communication in the form of personal meetings is the form of communication that is most effective and appreciated.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:sh-44651 |
| Date | January 2021 |
| Creators | Larsson, Emmaliz, Lundblad, Lisa |
| Publisher | Södertörns högskola, Miljövetenskap, Södertörns högskola, Miljövetenskap |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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