The enactment of socio-technical transition pathways: A reformulated typology and a comparative multi-level analysis of the German and UK low-carbon electricity transitions (1990–2014)

By Frank W. Geels, F. Kern, G. Fuchs, Nele Hinderer, G. Kungl, Josephine Mylan, Mario Neukirch, S. Wassermann. 2016

764 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This paper aims to make two contributions to the sustainability transitions literature, in particular the Geels and Schot (2007. Res. Policy 36(3), 399) transition pathways typology. First, it reformulates and differentiates the typology through the lens of endogenous enactment, identifying the main patterns for actors, formal institutions, and technologies. Second, it suggests that transitions may shift between pathways, depending on struggles over technology deployment and institutions. Both contributions are demonstrated with a comparative analysis of unfolding low-carbon electricity transitions in Germany and the UK between 1990–2014. The analysis shows that Germany is on a substitution pathway, enacted by new entrants deploying small-scale renewable electricity technologies (RETs), while the UK is on a transformation pathway, enacted by incumbent actors deploying large-scale RETs. Further analysis shows that the German transition has recently shifted from a ‘stretch-and-transform’ substitution pathway to a ‘fit-and-conform’ pathway, because of a fightback from utilities and altered institutions. It also shows that the UK transition moved from moderate to substantial incumbent reorientation, as government policies became stronger. Recent policy changes, however, substantially downscaled UK renewables support, which is likely to shift the transition back to weaker reorientation.

Subfields: Global and Planetary Change, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/52fa3bff7ca9f62c9a94c727bc095f21b2c7fd47

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Citations in the corpus

The co-evolution of policy mixes and socio-technical systems: Towards a conceptual framework of policy mix feedback in sustainability transitions (2019, background): “after coming to power, even at a time when the subsidies were contested because of contributing to rises in electricity prices, because of the existence of a strong domestic lobby (Lauber and Jacobsson 2016; Geels et al. 2016).”
The pace of governed energy transitions: Agency, international dynamics and the global Paris agreement accelerating decarbonisation processes? (2016, background): “In addition, a growing number of citizens and community cooperatives have acted as investors in renewable energy, thereby actively supporting the low carbon transition and shifting power structures in the electricity sector, such as in the case of Germany (Geels et al., 2016).”
Transformative policy mixes in socio-technical scenarios: The case of the low-carbon transition of the German electricity system (2010–2050) (2020, methodology): “This needs to be understood in the context of the current trajectory in which Germany has been following a ‘new-entrant-friendly’ pattern similar to pathway B (Geels et al., 2016b).”
Renewable Energy Cooperatives as an instrument towards the energy transition in Spain (2018, background): “Hence, further work may be directed to analyzing the interaction between RES cooperatives with the energy policy dynamics of the regime, distinguishing different transition pathways (Geels et al., 2016; Geels and Schot, 2007; Johanisova and Wolf, 2012).”
The open innovation research landscape: established perspectives and emerging themes across different levels of analysis (2016, neutral): “Specifically, OI can help entrepreneurs in identifying opportunities that are distant to their own knowledge endowments (distant search) and, thus, to acquire superior vision of the opportunity landscape available to the entrepreneur (Gruber, MacMillan, and Thompson 2013).”
Reducing energy demand through low carbon innovation: A sociotechnical transitions perspective and thirteen research debates (2018, background): “In recent years, however, a productive research stream has started to explore combinations of socio-technical and quantitative modelling approaches [149,29,69,70].”