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

106 Chapter 4
industry could deliver reliable wind turbines in the area of 50 to 100 kW.
Wind turbine production and application especially boomed in California
and Denmark helped by a mix of incentives for producers and users and
political support. In comparison, Dutch wind energy developed more slowly.
In 1985 9 MW wind capacity was installed in the Netherlands compared to
911 MW in California and 60 MW in Denmark 34 . Based on several sources 35
the following explanatory factors can be identified:
– The focus was on large scale development, without establishing
trajectories of learning through the development of small scale wind
turbines (see also box Sexbierum wind farm);
– The complexity of wind turbine technology was underestimated, leading
to the installation of wind turbines that were insufficiently tested. In
comparison in Denmark a test station for small wind turbines was set up
in 1978 while the early pioneer Johannes Juul had started small-scale
wind turbine development in the 1950s and his experiences were utilised
in the 1970s (Jorgenson and Karnoe, 1995);
– While the grassroots coalition largely lost out in expanding an alternative
to the institutional logics of the electricity sector coalition in the
Netherlands; in comparison in Denmark the bottom-up strategy of the
grass-roots coalition was successful from the mid 1970s to mid 1980s in
building local decentralised energy systems with strong local
involvement (among others through cooperatives at least 160.000
households owned shares in at least one turbine in the mid 1990s
according to Jorgensen and Karnoe, 1995: 75). Further developments in
Denmark were a slow up scaling of the turbines, a shift from domestic to
foreign markets, and the formation of managerial approaches to
marketing and exporting of wind turbines. Grin and van de Graaf (1996:
87) illustrate how change in management paradigms co-evolved with the
changes in the nature of firms in the wind sector in Denmark. In this
process the role of utilities and a more large-scale centralised approach
starts to gain the upper hand which also explains the recent focus on offshore
wind-farms in Denmark;
– The electricity sector was handed a key role in the development of largescale
application of wind energy and its connection to the grid, however
34 This is illustrated by the market share of Dutch wind turbines in the main market at the
beginning of the nineties, California. Of the 15,856 wind turbines 63 were from Dutch
origin (0%) as compared to 6,778 (43%) from Denmark, 660 (4%) from Japan, 283 (2%)
from Germany, and 174 (1%) from Belgium (Gipe 1995: 36). The only Dutch company
with significant export was Lagerwey, with wind turbines in the 75-80 kW area (Verbong,
1999: 153).
35 Gipe, 1995; Wolsink, 1996; Verbong, 1999; Smulders, 2000; de Keijzer, 2000; Beurskens,
2000.