From laggard to leader: Explaining offshore wind developments in the UK

Abstract

Copies of full text items generally can be reproduced, displayed or performed and given to third parties in any format or medium for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes without prior permission or charge, provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. Without an account of technology politics it is hard to explain continuing policy support despite rising costs. By analysing the actor networks and narratives underpinning policy support for offshore wind, we explain how a fairly effective protective space was constructed through the enrolling of key political and economic interests. From%laggard%to%leader

Understanding the Intensity of UK Policy Commitments to Nuclear Power

“…This would be the broad kind of approach, for instance, in many different versions of sociotechnical regime theory (Unruh 2000;Robertson 2015;Smith & Raven 2012;Geels 2004;Geels & Kemp 2007;Loorbach 2014;Kern et al 2014;Geels 2005;Geels & Schot 2007;Geels 2010;Geels 2009). In short, this would give rise to the 'UK nuclear power entrenchment hypothesis (H2)', also mentioned in the last section.…”

“…With regard to the most recent developments in this area at the time of writing, consent for investment in the specific project at Hinkley C by the EDF board was eventually won by a majority of 10-7 on the 28 th of July 2016 (Ruddick & Of probably lesser (but nonetheless possibly conceivable), relevance to this picture, are other potential industrial policy considerations (RenewableUK 2015; Norris 2016). For instance, the UK hosts a significant offshore construction industry (UK Trade and Investment 2012;Kern et al 2014;Toke 2011) of a kind that might benefit strongly from large programmes in renewable technologies (UK Trade and Investment 2015). While significant, roles for the UK engineering sector in the envisaged national civil nuclear programmes are restricted to second tier contractors and below (Oxford Economics 2013; BIS 2013).…”

Rethinking the Continuum between Public and Private Actors in Electricity Policy in the Context of the UK Energy Transition

“…Both nuclear power and offshore technologies fall in line with conventional energy projects in terms of planning and implementation, being thus familiar to both government and private investors. Such a centralised structure therefore enables private actors to directly interact and co-ordinate their strategic investments with the government [Kern et al 2014] 12 .…”

The North Sea Offshore Wind Service Industry: Status, perspectives and a joint action plan

“…However, as professed by the capacity figures discussed above, almost half of the installed offshore wind capacity in the whole world reside in the UK. The government of UK has engaged in quite purposeful niche creation to accelerate renewable energy adoption and wind energy has been benefitting in particular [9,52,53]. This also explains why the UK is rated as strong in the O&M part of the value chain, while it lacks capabilities and capacity in manufacturing components.…”