Path dependence & path creation: roles for incumbents in the low carbon transition?
Peter Pearson, Imperial College London, United Kingdom Several studies have emphasised the path dependent, locked-in states of incumbent high carbon technologies and industries (carbon lock-in), and their potential capacity to delay the development and penetration of low carbon technologies and practices (LCTs) (e.g. Unruh, 2000). Even if LCTs have similar attributes to existing technologies, apart from low carbon, if the existing technologies are already under pressure to improve, then LCTs may face a moving target (Pearson and Foxon, 2012). However, other analyses point towards the possibilities of path creation and creative accumulation by incumbent firms (Bergek et al. 2013). This paper examines these issues, explains why history and incumbents matter in the low carbon energy transition and investigates the roles that might be played by incumbents in actively advancing the transition. Many studies of large technological systems in energy (e.g. Hughes, 1983), show the positive and negative aspects of path dependency. Arapostathis et al. (2014), for example, shows both the advantages – how the development of the UK’s natural gas system benefited from the earlier construction of a ‘backbone’ distribution pipeline Read more…
Categories: Academic Papers, Energy economics, Energy policy, Renewables
Tags: incumbents, lock-in, low carbon transition, path creation, path dependence
Pearson-Path-creation-presentation-BIEE-2016.pdf 432.43 KBPearson_Path_dependence__path-creation_roles-for-incumbents-BIEE.pdf 253.43 KBSep
2016