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

Stability and transformation in the electricity system 83
Table 4.1 Scale and efficiency of steam turbines
Year Average Scale Average Thermal
Efficiency
Sources: VDEN 1980, SEP 1994, and interviews.
Steam Pressure Temperature
1946-1955 50- 60 MW Appr. 25 % Appr. 86 atm. Appr. 500 C
1955-1965 120-130 MW Appr. 30 % Appr. 180 atm. Appr. 535 C
1965-1975 200-400 MW Appr. 35 % Appr. 180 atm. Appr. 535 C
1975-1985 500-600 MW Appr. 40 % Appr. 190-200 atm. Appr. 550 C
In overview, turbine technology, central station electricity, and municipal
and provincial monopolies have been the dominant technological and
organisational forms in the Dutch electricity system. Regulative, normative
and cognitive institution-building were centred around the principles
identified by Hughes, which thus also were guiding actors in the Dutch
electricity system.
4.4 The nature of institutionalisation of the electricity
system in the early seventies
Until the early seventies the growth dynamics paradigm guided decision
making and strategic policy as can be illustrated by expectations expressed
in 1972 regarding electricity demand and supply for the coming decades.
The prognosis in Table 4.2 reflects the belief that electricity demand would
continue to double per decade and would be supplied by large-scale central
power plants. Nuclear technology was expected to play a crucial role in this
expansion due to factors internal to the electricity system such as the relative
technological stasis with regard to further improvement of steam turbine
technology, and external factors such as increasing awareness regarding the
finiteness of fossil sources and the politically sensitive dependency on the
Middle East. Around the world the dominant belief was that it would
gradually dominate electricity supply in the coming decades. Nuclear
technology was expected to substitute fossil base load power plants in the
medium future while gas fired power plants could guarantee the flexibility of
the production (peak management). Nuclear power plants could provide
improvements in the management of the electricity system because they
were expected to be highly controllable and would produce relatively cheap
electricity (‘too cheap to meter’). The variable costs of nuclear power plants
were expected to be small compared to conventional power plants, and it
was expected that only nuclear energy could meet the growing demand for
electricity (security of supply). Next to nuclear research R&D in that period
was focused on the development and improvement of fossil based
technologies. In the early seventies electricity supply was not yet ‘bothered’