Innovation and institutional change: the transition to a sustainable ...

Stability and transformation in the electricity system 93
ongoing significant national funding for nuclear energy until the midnineties.
The case of nuclear energy makes clear although this path was strongly
embedded in processes of institutionalisation within the electricity system, it
especially represented a different interpretation of the electricity system
within society for a variety of actor groups. The successful inclusion of a
new element within the electricity system demanded alignment with broader
knowledge, policy, economic and societal institutional arrangements. While
within the knowledge, policy and market dimension this alignment took
place by interpreting the suitability of nuclear technology within the growth
dynamics paradigm and within the central station electricity system, various
actors from civil society (including several scientists, policy makers, and
business representatives) interpreted inclusion of nuclear technology in a
totally different way. Mobilisation of this opposition and reinforcement of
their position due to several incidents with nuclear installations blocked
further development of the nuclear path. Crucial was also that mobilisation
took place around an alternative path based on energy saving and
cogeneration, and that this alternative ‘institutional logics’ was developed in
a good fit with increasing environmental concerns, energy price concerns,
and with interests of a range of energy-intensive industries. Nevertheless, the
nexus created between knowledge, government and the electricity sector
through the establishment of RCN, later ECN, and later the nuclear research
group (NRG), in which the nuclear activities of ECN and KEMA were
merged within ECN, has maintained a strong position. Both funding sources
and the strategic orientation of research have changed fundamentally, with
markets, such as the medical sector, and international funding sources,
becoming dominant relative to national funding, and with a shift to medical
nuclear research. Over the years the share of nuclear research in ECN has
remained stable around a level of 40% (Verbong, 2005: 43). Also
expectations regarding the future potential of nuclear energy remain as was
shown in four recent scenarios developed at ECN (Bruggink, 2005), where
in one scenario the high temperature reactor (HTR) was applied as a
decentral means of cogeneration on the island of Texel, a concept developed
at ECN and NRG (Verbong, 2005).
4.6 Hybridisation of steam and gas turbines
Gas turbine technology was invented in the early 1900s at a time that steam
turbine technology was already dominating electricity generation. Especially
during and after the Second World War gas turbine technology was further
developed as application to jet engines. Extensive R&D efforts in the