Understanding the scaling-up of community energy niches through strategic niche management theory: Insights from Finland

Ruggiero, Salvatore L.; Martiskainen, Mari; Onkila, Tiina

doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.09.144

Cited by 60 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 48 publications

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“…Theory suggests that successful niches can influence the regime by enabling replication of projects within the niche, bringing about changes through multiple small initiatives; by enabling constituent projects to grow in scale and attract more participants; and by facilitating the translation of niche ideas into mainstream settings [15]. In the process of developing niches and making them more robust, intermediaries appear to be of particular significance [19,21,24,95,96]. Therefore, SNM mainly addresses issues related to alleviating barriers and opening up regimes for the acceptance and breakthrough of LLCEIs.…”

Section: Strategies Intermediaries Usementioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Intermediaries in Supporting Local Low-Carbon Energy Initiatives

et al. 2018

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Recent scholarly attention shows that grassroots civil society low-carbon energy initiatives increasingly become part of the subnational climate change governance landscape. Despite their potency in view of consumer-owned distributed generation and enhanced citizen influence in the organization of the energy infrastructure, local low-carbon energy initiatives (LLCEIs) struggle to become viable alternatives to the centralized, private oriented energy system. To further LLCEI development, support needs to build their capacities; alleviate institutional hurdles and barriers stemming from the fossil fuel-based energy regime; and open up the system for the uptake, acceptance or breakthrough of LLCEIs. Evidence suggests that so-called "intermediaries" form a part of the solution in addressing these issues. Despite previous attempts at analyzing intermediary roles and activities vis-à-vis the development of community energy, the reality of the various roles and strategies intermediaries can employ and the support LLCEIs require to further develop have not yet been synthesized in a comprehensive analytical framework. This article aims to fill this gap by developing such a framework. We reflect on the analytical framework by evaluating the intermediary support structure in a specific case: the Province of Fryslân. From the analysis, we conclude that the Frisian case provided modest support to the claim that intermediary support is effective in addressing the needs of LLCEIs as the strategies and roles observed represent a complete and coherent support structure.

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Section: Strategies Intermediaries Usementioning

confidence: 99%

The Role of Intermediaries in Supporting Local Low-Carbon Energy Initiatives

et al. 2018

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“…Reviewing a decade of Strategic Niche Management (SNM) research, Schot and Geels [5] indicate that the attention to niche-internal dynamics has gone at the expense of understanding their external dynamics and today this still applies [9,17]. Like SNM, studies of Transition Management (TM) have argued that experimentation is key to stimulate upscaling [13].…”

Section: Conceptualizing Constraints On Upscalingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Anticipating Constraints on Upscaling from Urban Innovation Experiments

2018

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The upscaling of innovations from urban experiments is often assumed to be relatively easy, as if they can simply be 'rolled out'. In practice, however, upscaling is usually constrained by a range of factors in the wider context of the innovation, typically a context of interconnected and 'obdurate' urban socio-technical networks and institutions. Innovation studies have used the notion of upscaling from experiments most explicitly in studies of transitions, especially of strategic niche management (SNM) and transition management (TM). However, these studies have focused more on niche internal dynamics and future visions, respectively, and much less on constraints in the present socio-institutional context. This paper offers a conceptual contribution on 'constraints on upscaling', elaborating on how upscaling can be more effective when constraints on upscaling are first identified in retrospective systems analysis, and then anticipated in the design of urban experiments. Our focus is on innovation in urban mobility systems. After a conceptualization of 'constraints on upscaling', based on a review of the literature of transition, social innovation, geography and science & technology studies, we present a retrospective analysis of urban mobility in Maastricht (NL) in which these interrelated constraints can be recognized. Further, we analyze a pilot on electric bus mobility which was relatively successful in anticipating future constraints. Based on this, we offer some guidelines on how to anticipate upscaling in the design of urban experiments with socio-technical innovations.

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“…Strategic niche management research has long demonstrated that sustainable innovation journeys are facilitated through experimentation in protected spaces that allow co-evolution of user practice, technology and regulatory structures (Ruggiero et al 2018;Schot and Geels 2008). This is required to prevent early rejection (Raven 2007).…”

Section: Urban Sustainability Experiments and Transitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Positive inertia and proactive influencing towards sustainability: systems analysis of a frontrunner city

Irvine

Bai

2019

Urban Transform

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With an increasingly urban population, cities have an important role to play in global environmental sustainability. Cities engaged in pioneering and ongoing sustainability experimentation-the frontrunners-can lead the way towards sustainability transition, and often become the beacon for others to follow. However, the nature and the internal dynamics that make a city a frontrunner, or the role of frontrunner cities in sustainability transition beyond their boundary, remain unclear. In addition, most studies on the influence of these frontrunners are limited to passive influencing, i.e. how the practice has been duplicated by others, or how the practice is adopted and mainstreamed into system level. Based on in-depth case studies on a frontrunner city and two other cities influenced by it, this paper examines how momentum for positive changes has been initiated, built, and sustained towards changing the status quo of practice through a succession of actors and a series of reinforcing feedback loops. We argue that creating a positive inertia through sustained momentum and embedding the frontrunner identity in a city is essential for it to continue the process of sustainability transition. Frontrunners can create flow-on benefits for other cities through a proactive influencing. Supported by multiple two-way benefits, such proactive influencing is a new mechanism of mainstreaming and up-scaling urban sustainability experiments in system innovation and transition.

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Understanding the scaling-up of community energy niches through strategic niche management theory: Insights from Finland

Cited by 60 publications

References 48 publications

The Role of Intermediaries in Supporting Local Low-Carbon Energy Initiatives

The Role of Intermediaries in Supporting Local Low-Carbon Energy Initiatives

Anticipating Constraints on Upscaling from Urban Innovation Experiments

Positive inertia and proactive influencing towards sustainability: systems analysis of a frontrunner city

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