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

74 Chapter 4
energy saving and efficiency considerations but required fundamental
changes in the configuration of the electricity system and its underlying
principles. In this perspective the electricity system is conceptualised as a
sociotechnical system consisting of a cluster of elements, including
technology, regulation, user practices and markets, cultural meaning,
infrastructure, maintenance networks, and supply networks. Figure 4.1 gives
different interconnected elements for the system of electricity provision and
use. The elements in a sociotechnical system have become aligned, finetuned
and woven together through processes of institutionalisation.
Institutionalisation refers to increasing coordination of activities through
institutions of a regulative, normative and cognitive nature (Zucker, 1988;
Holm, 1995; Scott, 2001).
Figure 4.1 Sociotechnical system for electricity provision and use
Regulations and policies
(e.g. safety rules, emission
standards, energy taxes, resource
policies)
Fuel infrastructure
(coal, oil, gas & biomass
companies, pipelines)
Cultural and symbolic
meaning (e.g. electricity as
basic need, electrification of
society)
Transmission infrastructure
(high-low voltage networks,
grid operators, maintenance)
Sociotechnicalsystem for
electricity provision and use
Artifacts (power
plants, transformers,
turbines)
Industry structure
(e.g. power producers,
distributors)
Markets and user
practices (user profiles
and preferences)
Knowledge infrastructure
(engineering education,
R&D institutes)
Our analysis of changes within the electricity system in the past thirty years
focuses on identifying a number of alternative routes taken, identifying the
nature of change in practices these represent, identifying the extent to which
they represent changes in institutions, and aims to gain understanding in the
nature of their interaction with patterns of institutional change.
The organisation of this chapter is as follows. First we focus on the origins
of the electricity system in order to understand the way the system came into
being and the nature of institutionalisation through which the system became
embedded in society. Secondly, we describe how different patterns of
change emerged both from within and outside the regime. In a final section
we draw overall conclusion based upon the analytical concepts presented in
chapter three.