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

Conclusions 213
when actors, networks, resources, and knowledge had to be mobilised
outside the realm of the existing system. The mode of governance internal to
the electricity system, with its centralist orientation and closed nature, failed
to produce successful development of nuclear energy, wind energy, and
district heating, due to its inability to anticipate and adapt to the multi-actor
and multi-level processes underlying these new practices. Processes of
agenda building regarding nuclear energy took place within the circles of
government and the electricity sector. Expectations regarding nuclear
technology were high, nuclear energy was expected to able to meet growing
electricity demand, and would fit very well in the central station electricity
model. Yet, agendas for nuclear energy diverged between government
(building a nuclear industry) and the electricity sector (keep technology
choice in-house), while society at large was not part of the process. The
belief in nuclear energy, which had developed in the electricity sector over a
period of decades and had its legitimatization in securing electricity supply
in convergence with economic growth, was increasingly being challenged by
increasing strength of the role of alternative factors (environmental and risk
concerns) and actors (from civil society).
Apart from being unable to legitimize the choice for nuclear technology the
mode of governance also proved unable to help the development of another
alternative, wind energy. Wind energy was developed initially solely to fit
the requirements of the electricity system based on the heuristics of central
station electricity such as large scale and continuity. This happened at a too
early stage of its technological development when wind technology was not
yet fit to meet these requirements, while actors outside the electricity sector
were driven by different design criteria that proved to be more appropriate
for further development of wind technologies. This suggests that dominant
‘institutional logics’ could not deliver appropriate strategies, modes of
coordination, and learning processes, necessary to advance these
technologies. Institutional changes played a central role in the
implementation and acceleration of wind energy from the 1990s on. The
separation between distribution and production and the uptake of decentral
power generation options by distributors in competition to central producers
is a core example. This was especially fostered when distributors committed
to environmental goals under the new target group policy introduced with
the first National Environmental Policy Plan. The development of wind
power was one of the ways to reduce CO2 emissions.