The development of wind power in China, Europe and the USA: how have policies and innovation system activities co-evolved?

Abstract

This paper takes an innovation system approach to analysing the development of wind energy in three jurisdictions: the EU, USA and China. The paper builds on and extends previous innovation system studies on wind in two ways. First, it focuses on the interactions over time between policy and innovation system dynamics, in order to highlight lessons for low-carbon policymaking. Second, it extends the analysis from the formative and growth phases of the innovation system to the globalisation and transfer phase, in which mature technologies are transferred to new markets. The conclusions are: first, policies should go beyond 'market pull' and 'technology push' and should take into account the institutional frameworks through which they are delivered; second, policies have been more successful where they prioritised long-term learning-oriented deployment rather than short-term efficiency; third, system failures exist at the transfer stage of development as well as during formative and growth phases.

Technological innovation systems in contexts: Conceptualizing contextual structures and interaction dynamics

“…Then this country may be treated as a shorthand denomination for all different contexts. As a matter of fact, most empirical applications of the TIS concept have focused on the national scale or, at most, endeavoured comparative analyses of two or several nationally delimited TISs (Bergek and Jacobsson, 2003;Lovio and Kivimaa, 2012;McDowall et al, 2013;Negro et al, 2007;Vasseur et al, 2013).…”

“…Scholars have developed the geographical dimension further (e.g. Binz et al, 2014;Coenen et al, 2012;Gosens et al, 2015;Schmidt and Dabur, 2014), studied the parallel development and competition of several technologies (Johnson and Jacobsson, 2001;Sandén and Hillman, 2011;Suurs and Hekkert, 2009a;Wirth and Markard, 2011) and linked TISs to wider policy settings (Kivimaa and Virkamäki, 2014;Markard et al, in press;McDowall et al, 2013). Some have also made a plea to combine the TIS framework with the Multi-Level Perspective to better capture the relationship between technology evolution and sectoral change (Markard and Truffer, 2008;Meelen and Farla, 2013).…”

Analyzing interdependencies between policy mixes and technological innovation systems: The case of offshore wind in Germany

“…A recent example is Kivimaa and Virkamäki (2013), which analyzes the impact of several policy instruments on TIS functioning and in doing so detects design flaws in single policy instruments. Similarly, McDowall et al (2013) explores how policy instruments influence system functioning, and addresses system weaknesses for the onshore wind innovation system in four countries. It concludes with lessons for a low-carbon instrument mix, e.g.…”

The construction of a new technological innovation system in a follower country: Wind energy in Portugal

“…New technologies often face high uncertainties and financial needs in combination with low institutional support and small (if any) markets (Kemp et al, 1998). The early stage is crucial in the building up of the supportive structure that allows the innovation system to move into the next stage and to develop in a 1 With a few exceptions, such as: McDowall et al (2013), Sovacool (2010) and Kristinsson and Rao (2008). 2 The authors are thankful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out the example of solar PV.…”