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

8 Chapter 1
specific momentum for processes towards systems change and sustainable
development. Central is further the recognition that the nature of changes
necessary in the pursuit of a sustainable electricity system demand new paths
that involve co-evolution of innovation and institutional change.
Understanding the nature of this co-evolution is a first objective of this
dissertation. Analysing how this co-evolution has shaped the way certain
paths have unfolded for electricity production and consumption is a second
objective. The final objective is to utilise these insights to provoke, redirect
or reinforce more sustainable patterns of co-evolution.
1.3 Research questions and outline of the chapters
Central to this book is the understanding that transformation of systems of
production and consumption involves a process of co-evolution of
institutional and technological change and involves changes in institutions at
different levels and between those levels. At the micro level it involves the
development of a new product, technology or concept, made possible as a
variety of actors, such as firms, policy-makers, customers, change their way
of doing things. At the meso-level it involves changes in practices at the
level of sectors, and at the macro-level it involves changes in systems of
innovation and regulation. Systems change slowly occurs as changes at
different levels start to connect and synchronise, leading to the emergence of
new institutional fabric that creates linkages between the different levels.
The aim of this book is to specify this perspective by analysing patterns of
change in the electricity system. Scientifically, the relevance of the book is
in its analysis and explanation of fundamental processes of change, a topic
relevant for a range of scientific disciplines, from economics, sociology,
technology studies, to policy science. Its societal relevance lies mainly in its
use for gaining insight in the way systems change can be directed towards
the normative goal of sustainable development.
The overall research questions by which this research is guided are:
To what extent can the dynamics of transformation in the electricity system
be understood as the interaction between technological and institutional
change?, applied more specifically to:
a. how does this dynamics take place at and between different levels?;
b. when and how does this dynamics reinforce the existing system,
representing processes of lock-in, or destabilise the existing system,
representing processes of escaping lock-in?; and,