Legitimation, institutions and regional path creation: a cross-national study of offshore wind

Abstract

This paper assesses legitimation as a crucial dimension of industry emergence, addressing the neglect of institutional and political aspects of path creation in economic geography. It investigates how the legitimacy of emerging industries is built up over time and examines differences in legitimation across space. The paper focuses on the evolution of legitimation narratives in the context of national and regional differences in institutions, actors and assets. Based on a cross-national study of the offshore wind industry, the paper argues that cost reduction and value creation have made important contributions to legitimation in addition to climate change and energy security.

Gaining lead firm position in an emerging industry: A global production networks analysis of two Scandinavian energy firms in offshore wind power

“…Our predominantly qualitative research design is informed by our research on the OWP sector since 2010 (e.g., Steen and Hansen, 2014, 2018; Afewerki et al, 2019; MacKinnon et al, 2019, 2021). As part of a broader research project (2016–2019), primary data were generated from 45 semi-structured interviews with representatives of different firms and non-firm actors (including two interviews with Equinor, and several interviews with consultancy firms and other actors with a broad overview of the OWP market) in the Northern European OWP sector from 2016 to 2019.…”

“…In this way, OWP has become largely decoupled from its onshore counterpart, although it has structural couplings both to that industry and to other onshore power sectors and the O&G industry via, for example, multi-industry suppliers and diversifying energy producers. State support in the form of, for example, feed-in tariffs and contracts for difference (CfDs) has been crucial for market development, and in recent years has shifted toward more competitive bidding and tendering procedures (MacKinnon et al, 2021).…”

“…Cost-capability optimization strategies. Within this emerging industry, cost is an important competitive parameter vis-à-vis other OWP developers and other power generation technologies (MacKinnon et al, 2021). Around the years 2009and 2010, as a relatively new technology, OWP was still expensive compared with other power generation technologies.…”

“…For example, to remain competitive within the rapidly maturing OWP industry, lead firms constantly need to optimize their global production and sourcing arrangements to achieve economies of scale. This has occurred in response to increasing cost pressures in the industry due to, for instance, decreasing governmental support programs and shifts toward more competitive tendering (MacKinnon et al, 2021). In turn, this has resulted in the OWP industry becoming dominated by a relatively limited number of lead firms.…”

The state of municipal energy transitions: Multi-scalar constraints and enablers of Europe’s post-carbon energy ambitions

“…Yet those futures remain constrained by history, current capacity and available resources. Pathways to low-carbon futures are highly politicised, and the ability of advocates to navigate and adapt to the challenges that arise in the promotion of key technologies has been identified as important in legitimating certain pathways over others (MacKinnon et al, 2022). This article argues that in making sense of the unevenness that becomes evident in municipal capacities for transition, there is a need for critical awareness of the nested multi-scalar governance dynamics shaping the municipal level, building on recent calls to extend a more relational understanding of sustainability transformations emerging between places and across scales (Grandin and Haarstad, 2021).…”