Exploring the role of phase-out policies for low-carbon energy transitions: the case of the German Energiewende

By Karoline S. Rogge, P. Johnstone. 2017

184 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The energy sector plays a significant role in reaching the ambitious climate policy target of limiting the global temperature increase to well below 2°C. To this end, technological change has to be redirected and accelerated in the direction of zero-carbon solutions. Given the urgency and magnitude of the climate change challenge it has been argued that this calls for a policy mix which simultaneously supports low-carbon solutions and also deliberately drives the discontinuation of the established technological regime. Yet, the effect of such phase-out policies on the development and diffusion of low-carbon technologies has received little attention in empirical research so far. This paper addresses this gap by taking the case of the transition of the German electricity generation system towards renewable energies – the so-called Ener-giewende. Based on a survey of innovation activities of German manufacturers of renewable power gener-ation technologies conducted in 2014 it explores the impact such destabilization policies – most prominent-ly Germany’s nuclear phase-out policy – may have on technological change in renewable energies. By drawing on descriptive statistics and combining insights from earlier regression analyses we find evidence that Germany’s nuclear phase-out policy had a positive influence on manufacturers’ innovation expendi-tures for renewable energies and was seen as the by far most influential policy instrument for the further expansion of renewable energies in Germany. The insights resulting from our explorative analysis have important implications for the literature on policy mixes and sustainability transitions regarding the ‘flip sides’ to innovation and the crucial importance of destabilization policies for unleashing ‘destructive crea-tion’. We close by discussing policy repercussions for ongoing debates on policies for accelerating the phase-out of coal to meet climate change targets.

Subfields: Economics and Econometrics, Global and Planetary Change, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/348f50a1313fc13c976066e7e6d031c77e7a744d

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Citations in the corpus

Harnessing theories of the policy process for analysing the politics of sustainability transitions: A critical survey (2017, background): “Second, it has been argued that policy mixes aiming at structural change may need to pursue simultaneously the ‘creation’ of green innovation as well as the ‘destruction’ of incumbent systems (Kivimaa and Kern 2016; Rogge and Johnstone 2017).”
The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions (2019, background): “Only few studies have started to draw on policy process theories in the context of transitions to better understand processes of policy change (Kern and Rogge, 2017).”