The hesitant emergence of low carbon technologies in the UK: the micro-CHP innovation system

To implement EU climate policy, the UK’s New Labour government (1997–2010) elaborated an ecomodernist policy framework. It promoted technological innovation to provide low-carbon renewable energy, especially by treating waste as a resource. This framework discursively accommodated rival sociotechnical imaginaries, understood as visions of feasible and desirable futures available through technoscientific development. According to the dominant imaginary, techno-market fixes stimulate low-carbon technologies by making current centralized systems more resource-efficient (as promoted by industry incumbents). According to the alternative eco-localization imaginary, a shift to low-carbon systems should instead localize resource flows, output uses and institutional responsibility (as promoted by civil society groups). The UK government policy framework gained political authority by accommodating both imaginaries. As we show by drawing on three case studies, the realization of both imaginaries depended on institutional changes and material-economic resources of distinctive kinds. In practice, financial incentives drove technological design towards trajectories that favour the dominant sociotechnical imaginary, while marginalizing the eco-localization imaginary and its environmental benefits. The ecomodernist policy framework relegates responsibility to anonymous markets, thus displacing public accountability of the state and industry. These dynamics indicate the need for STS research on how alternative sociotechnical imaginaries mobilize support for their realization, rather than be absorbed into the dominant imaginary.

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How Do LCD Innovations Differ?

Handbook of Research on Driving Competitive Advantage through Sustainable, Lean, and Disruptive Innovation - Advances in Business Strategy and Competitive Advantage ◽

10.4018/978-1-5225-0135-0.ch011 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 244-275

Author(s):

Rainer Walz

Keyword(s):

Innovation System ◽

Energy System ◽

Inclusive Development ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Market Failures ◽

Energy Innovation ◽

Low Carbon Development ◽

Low Carbon Technologies ◽

Lock In ◽

The Empirical Analysis

Low Carbon Development (LCD) implies to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere and to foster inclusive development. This requires systemic innovations, which can lead to disruptive changes, and the build-up of capabilities to enhance the innovations. LCD offers opportunities to reduce energy costs and to export low-carbon solutions. Various specificities constitute a lock-in into the existing fossil fuel based energy system: technological specificities of grid based infrastructure systems, dependence on regulation to overcome market failures, and the political economy of the energy innovation system. There are also systemic reasons why decisions routines for energy related decisions adapt very slowly to new challenges. The empirical analysis indicates that there is considerable heterogeneity among the countries with regard to their starting positions to overcome the various obstacles and to build the comparative advantages which will enable them to supply the global markets with low carbon technologies.

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Economic and Carbon Costs of Electricity Balancing Services: The Need for Secure Flexible Low-Carbon Generation

Energies ◽

10.3390/en14165123 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 14 (16) ◽

pp. 5123

Author(s):

Mauro Lafratta ◽

Matthew Leach ◽

Rex B. Thorpe ◽

Mark Willcocks ◽

Eve Germain ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Capital Investment ◽

Electricity Sector ◽

Three Dimensions ◽

Carbon Intensity ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Security Of Supply ◽

Net Zero ◽

The Uk ◽

Low Carbon Technologies ◽

Balancing Services

The electricity sector aims to achieve a balanced progress in all three dimensions of the energy trilemma: affordability, decarbonisation and security of supply. Separate strategies for decarbonisation and security of supply have been pursued; each with close attention to minimising costs, thus consistent with the affordability aspect of the trilemma. However, while it is evident that the pathway for decarbonisation increases pressure on security of supply, the pressures that cost-minimising security of supply measures are putting on decarbonisation goes unaddressed. The United Kingdom (UK) is a global leader in the transition towards a decarbonised economy and aims to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. As a major part of the UK, Great Britain (GB) has achieved greater than 50% of low-carbon electricity generation and the grid’s carbon intensity has dropped by 36% over the period 2015–2019. However, balancing services that provide security of supply uses only 8% of low-carbon generation. Their carbon intensity is double the grid’s average and this gap is widening. This is an effect of a systemic reliance on carbon-intensive fuels. Financial support for capital investment for flexible low-carbon technologies is much needed. The GB context suggests that an integrated strategy covering all three dimensions of the trilemma might achieve an improved balance between them and unlock an affordable, net-zero emissions and secure power system.

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Energy transitions and uncertainty: Creating low carbon investment opportunities in the UK electricity sector

Environment and Planning C Government and Policy ◽

10.1177/0263774x15619628 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 34 (8) ◽

pp. 1387-1403 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Ronan Bolton ◽

Timothy J Foxon ◽

Stephen Hall

Keyword(s):

Electricity Markets ◽

Electricity Market ◽

Capital Intensity ◽

Electricity Sector ◽

Low Carbon ◽

The Face ◽

Incumbent Regime ◽

The Uk ◽

Low Carbon Technologies

This paper examines how actors in the UK electricity sector are attempting to deliver investment in low carbon generation. Low carbon technologies, because of their relative immaturity, capital intensity and low operational costs, do not readily fit with existing electricity markets and investment templates which were designed for fossil fuel based energy. We analyse key electricity market and infrastructure policies in the UK and highlight how these are aimed at making low carbon technologies ‘investable’ by reducing uncertainty, managing investment risks and repositioning actors within the electricity socio-technical ‘regime’. We argue that our study can inform contemporary debates on the politics and governance of sustainability transitions by empirically investigating the agency of incumbent regime actors in the face of uncertainty and by offering critical insights on the role of markets and finance in shaping socio-technical change.

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Optimal approaches to manage power system decarbonation

International Journal of Applied Electromagnetics and Mechanics ◽

10.3233/jae-209464 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 64 (1-4) ◽

pp. 1447-1452

Author(s):

Vincent Mazauric ◽

Ariane Millot ◽

Claude Le Pape-Gardeux ◽

Nadia Maïzi

Keyword(s):

Free Energy ◽

Linear Programming ◽

Phase Transitions ◽

Power System ◽

Energy System ◽

Energy Sources ◽

Low Carbon ◽

Faraday’S Law ◽

Optimal Description ◽

Low Carbon Technologies

To overcome the negative environemental impact of the actual power system, an optimal description of quasi-static electromagnetics relying on a reversible interpretation of the Faraday’s law is given. Due to the overabundance of carbon-free energy sources, this description makes it possible to consider an evolution towards an energy system favoring low-carbon technologies. The management for changing is then explored through a simplified linear-programming problem and an analogy with phase transitions in physics is drawn.

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