Transition without Conflict? Renewable Energy Initiatives in the Dutch Energy Transition

Abstract

In the context of the slowly progressing energy transition, a number of renewable energy initiatives have been emerging in the Netherlands. These initiatives represent alternatives to the dominant functioning of the energy system, and as such, may come into conflict with it. Transitions involve system destabilisation and conflict between the incumbent regime and the initiatives originating in niches. In order to assess the transformative potential of such initiatives, this paper addresses the question: what kind of conflicts and tensions arise from renewable energy initiatives, and what strategies do they develop to overcome or avoid them? Combined with a business model perspective, transition thinking enabled a better understanding of how the initiatives organise themselves, and where the points of friction with their institutional context emerge. We suggest that the instances of conflict may function as an indication for the state of the energy transition and the transformative potential impact of such initiatives. The instances discussed in this contribution relate to existing support schemes, technology choices, and the overall organisational networks of the emerging sector.Transitions are complex, co-evolutionary processes of fundamental change [10,11]. They bring about a change of institutions, and of the formal and informal (explicit or implicit) rules of the game that shape the behaviour of its key actors (p. 14) [12]. Transitions are processes of disruptive change that entail system destabilisation, tensions and conflicts [10,11]. In system transitions, change comes about as the result of processes operating at multiple scales [10,11]. External pressures, like climate change or nuclear disasters, occur at the landscape level, an exogenous environment. The landscape puts pressure on the incumbent regime, the dominant functioning of the system. It causes tensions within the regime and enables increasingly competitive configurations in niches to gain importance [13,14]. To break through, innovations in the niche have to struggle against the selection pressures exercised by dominant regimes [11,15]. Concurring with Hård [16] who argued that social conflict should "be treated as a cause of innovation, diffusion, transfer, and application-not only as a result of these processes" (p. 409), we suggest that conflict may serve as an indicator of the state of the energy transition process, and the potential transformative impact of the initiatives in the niche. Therefore, in order to understand, and potentially support, the transformative potential of REIs, this paper addresses the question: what kind of conflicts and tensions arise around renewable energy initiatives, and what strategies do they develop to overcome or avoid them?Although niche and regime contrast by definition, their interaction is not always conflictual. Some strategies take a more radical stance than others. There may be several reasons why niche-innovations avoid conflict with the regime. First of all, through actions tailored to maintain the s...

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